I have detailed my attempts to dual-boot W7 and Mint Cinnamon in previous posts, but here is a recap:

Dell Inspiron 519 PC, originally came with Vista. Several years ago, bought and installed a second hard drive programmed with W7 HP 64 bit (a legitimate copy). Since Vista now no longer used, attempted to substitute Linux Mint Cinnamon 19.1, the most recent version, for the Vista OS. Removed the Vista HD and installed a new blank HD, which I loaded with Mint via a download. This went well, but then could no longer open W7. BIOS still lists the W7 HD, seen on the boot options at startup, but will not boot to it, defaults to Mint. At first, BIOS showed the W7 drive as “disabled” but now merely shows it, I can select it, but the PC defaults to Mint anyway.

Previous advice here was that the Vista drive is needed to open W7. Replaced the Vista HD and with that W7 booted as expected, much to my relief. But the new pressing issue is that W7 will not shut down, gets hung up on the “shutting down” screen. A malware scan came back clean. No idea how to retreat from this, so shut down with the power button. Vista still shuts down correctly.

Previous advice centered on repairing the bootloader (with some variations) as I thought I did not have the W7 installation disc. Turns out I do in fact have it, apparently sent with that W7 HD and forgotten in a drawer- perhaps this changes the picture. So, my question- what should I do next?

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How long have you given the Windows 7 time to attempt a complete shutdown? You need to check that Windows 7’s file system as there are likely some soft errors which there is need to test and fix because of the forced power down.

Attachments:

The event viewer sections Application and System will be the best place to look for critical errors. You can group these errors together by clicking on Level. If your remember the approximate time that you forced that last shutdown there might be one there, there is no guarantee anything causing the fault was saved in an event log file.

You can search for the Event code with a preferred search engine to possibly gain some amount of understanding of it:

Kernel event 3 is an error related to event tracing and log files.
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If you see Kernel with Event 41 it is a power problem, this article expounds a bit upon the subject. Joe’s recommendation about running the Power Troubleshooter is good advice.

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Since my Mint installation and Vista removal, W7 now has 6,600 errors (!) With the Vista HD removed from the machine, the W7 drive will not boot. It turns out I do have the W7 installation disc, buried in a drawer, now in hand.

If I reinstall the W7 OS without the Vista drive connected, maybe I’ll get a fresh start with 7, including bootloader and proper shutdown sequence. But if I do that, what happens to the added programs and local files, i.e. data?

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Checkout EasyBCD for your boot issues before you go the reinstall route. You’ll have a boatload of patches to install if you start from scratch.

As of now, with the Vista and W7 HD’s installed, the PC boots as always with the choice of OS at bootup. If I do a system restore to before the Mint HD went in, maybe that would fix the shutdown issue for W7.

That would still leave me with the no-start problem with W7 and Mint installed, but the no-shutdown takes precedence- one fix at a time.

Mint installation was 3/1. No Windows backups installed since then, but some personal files have been altered. If I do a system restore, those changes would be lost, but no data has been changed since the last weekly backup, yesterday. If I understand correctly, I can bring those files current using my backup disc. Is this correct?

As far as putting the bootloader on the Win 7 drive: The discovery of the Windows disc doesn’t change anything as far as my suggestions. Since you have it handy, it would certainly be worth a try to boot it and see if it will be able to repair it, but my guess is that it will tell you that it was not able to repair Windows (based on my recent experience with the Windows 10 install USB trying to place a bootloader on my Acer Swift’s drive). This is essentially the same thing as following the above advice about creating a recovery disc… if the Windows disc cannot repair Windows, there’s no point to creating the recovery disc, as it will just try the same things.

I’d install Macrium Reflect Free edition and have it create a USB or disc bootable, then boot that and select “Fix Windows boot issues.” It should find both Windows installations, so select 7, of course, and then select the Windows 7 drive for the place to install the bootloader. It should show that it failed on the step to remove the old bootloader, which is expected, since it’s not there. The rest of the steps should show as succeeded, and after that it will ask to reboot, so select yes, then go to Mint and enter the sudo update-grub command again. After the next reboot, it should show two Windows boot manager entries. At that point you can try removing the Vista drive again, and 7 should still boot fine after that.

As far as the shutdown issue… Other people have suggested looking in the event viewer, and that’ what I would suggest too. It may take a good amount of drilling down through the messages and seeing what the actual text is for each one. One thing I do sometimes is wait for an even number on the system clock and shut it down right then, so you know which log events took place immediately following the shutdown.

You might also want to give the Windows disks an error check for good measure.

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As far as putting the bootloader on the Win 7 drive: The discovery of the Windows disc doesn’t change anything as far as my suggestions. Since you have it handy, it would certainly be worth a try to boot it and see if it will be able to repair it, but my guess is that it will tell you that it was not able to repair Windows (based on my recent experience with the Windows 10 install USB trying to place a bootloader on my Acer Swift’s drive). This is essentially the same thing as following the above advice about creating a recovery disc… if the Windows disc cannot repair Windows, there’s no point to creating the recovery disc, as it will just try the same things. I’d install Macrium Reflect Free edition and have it create a USB or disc bootable, then boot that and select “Fix Windows boot issues.” It should find both Windows installations, so select 7, of course, and then select the Windows 7 drive for the place to install the bootloader. It should show that it failed on the step to remove the old bootloader, which is expected, since it’s not there. The rest of the steps should show as succeeded, and after that it will ask to reboot, so select yes, then go to Mint and enter the sudo update-grub command again. After the next reboot, it should show two Windows boot manager entries. At that point you can try removing the Vista drive again, and 7 should still boot fine after that. As far as the shutdown issue… Other people have suggested looking in the event viewer, and that’ what I would suggest too. It may take a good amount of drilling down through the messages and seeing what the actual text is for each one. One thing I do sometimes is wait for an even number on the system clock and shut it down right then, so you know which log events took place immediately following the shutdown. You might also want to give the Windows disks an error check for good measure.

PLease see my post, time stamped the same as yours. Can you comment on that strategy as the first move?

I’m not really sure what you mean by changes to personal files being lost but no data having changed. What personal files do you mean? I usually see the term ‘personal files’ used in a way that is synonymous with data files, which are not normally rolled back by System Restore.

System restore is meant to preserve that kind of personal files, but it’s always a good idea to back up the files you don’t want to lose before doing any repair procedures. Anything worth keeping is worth backing up!

You can try performing a system restore to see if it fixes the shutdown issue. You may want to have it scan for changes and report them to you first, and then don’t do it just yet… the list of things it comes up with may contain the source of the shutdown hang. Maybe you installed something that you could uninstall and see if that helps.

If that proves unhelpful, then you can perform the restore and see how it goes. I’m kind of a backup fanatic, so I’d image the Windows drive in question first, just in case the restore process messes something up. It shouldn’t, but you just never know about these things.

If it was working fine before, the only thing hardware-wise that will have changed is the addition of the Linux drive, and that certainly shouldn’t have any bearing on Windows, so the idea of going back to when it was working fine isn’t a bad one.

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Sure! I’m not really sure what you mean by changes to personal files being lost but no data having changed. What personal files do you mean? I usually see the term ‘personal files’ used in a way that is synonymous with data files, which are not normally rolled back by System Restore. System restore is meant to preserve that kind of personal files, but it’s always a good idea to back up the files you don’t want to lose before doing any repair procedures. Anything worth keeping is worth backing up! You can try performing a system restore to see if it fixes the shutdown issue. You may want to have it scan for changes and report them to you first, and then don’t do it just yet… the list of things it comes up with may contain the source of the shutdown hang. Maybe you installed something that you could uninstall and see if that helps. If that proves unhelpful, then you can perform the restore and see how it goes. I’m kind of a backup fanatic, so I’d image the Windows drive in question first, just in case the restore process messes something up. It shouldn’t, but you just never know about these things. If it was working fine before, the only thing hardware-wise that will have changed is the addition of the Linux drive, and that certainly shouldn’t have any bearing on Windows, so the idea of going back to when it was working fine isn’t a bad one.

Thanks for your time and effort. The deeper this goes, the more my comfort level and confidence sinks. I tried to do a system image with Macrium, trial period still ongoing, but I failed at it for some reason. My thought is to try something within my comfort level if possible. The data I’m referring to is in fact personal files. What I said was that, although some data was altered after the Mint install on 3/1, nothing has changed since yesterday’s backup, so if I do the system restore, I can bring those personal files up to date using yesterday’s backup. Depending on the outcome, I can, with help, address the rest of the mess I made.

I don’t know if there is anything within your comfort zone that will put a bootloader on the Win 7 disk. It’s a somewhat advanced thing, but then so is installing Linux– and that bit went pretty easily!

I’m not suggesting Reflect for backups at this point, though, but to make a USB or disc that you can use to boot and select “Fix Windows boot problems.”

It would be good to use Reflect or something else to begin a backup regime, but for now, the purpose is to create the bootloader.

If the personal files are data files like text documents, PDFs, images, spreadsheets, videos, audio files, or stuff like that, System Restore should not have any effect upon it. System restore will roll back changes to system configuration files and executable or system files (.exe, .dll, and a bunch of others like that). It’s still good to back them up first. That doesn’t mean you need Reflect or anything like that– it could be as simple as copying them to a USB thumb drive and setting that aside until this is all done.

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I hope this is not too late, but I will try to post this before you move forward–

What’s the Rush?

It sounds like the only problem you have right now is a stuck shut down–and you have a usable work around of holding down the power button.

You posted in your previous thread that your primary need was to able to boot Win7. Now, it’s I have to be able to shut down in a *normal* fashion.

You are at risk of loosing all ability to boot Win7! Don’t do that until you have a better understanding of what you’re doing, the risk(s) involved, and a backup plan B available should thing go very wrong.

I don’t think you are properly prepared yet to recover from a major problem of either entering a wrong command, or having the software do something wrong!

Take a deep breath, hang on for awhile, let’s try other solutions that may be less drastic first …

@ Slowpoke47 I hope this is not too late, but I will try to post this before you move forward– What’s the Rush? It sounds like the only problem you have right now is a stuck shut down–and you have a usable work around of holding down the power button. You posted in your previous thread that your primary need was to able to boot Win7. Now, it’s I have to be able to shut down in a *normal* fashion. You are at risk of loosing all ability to boot Win7! Don’t do that until you have a better understanding of what you’re doing, the risk(s) involved, and a backup plan B available should thing go very wrong. I don’t think you are properly prepared yet to recover from a major problem of either entering a wrong command, or having the software do something wrong! Take a deep breath, hang on for awhile, let’s try other solutions that may be less drastic first …

Thanks for your input. My thought is to go one step at a time. If I restore the system to before the Mint install, on 3/1, I hope to fix the shutdown issue. My weekly backup completed yesterday and no files have been changed since then. I expect that, after SR, I can update any changes to personal files using that backup. Once that happens successfully, I’m made whole to before the Mint.

That’s when I need to make a plan going forward, hopefully with guidance, and then there’s no rush. The concern now is that I’ve been repeatedly warned that shutting down via the power button is dangerous, sooner or later.

Previous advice here was that the Vista drive is needed to open W7. Replaced the Vista HD and with that W7 booted as expected, much to my relief. But the new pressing issue is that W7 will not shut down, gets hung up on the “shutting down” screen.

*NOT A PRESSING ISSUE*! An aggravation–yes. An annoyance–yes. Pressing–no! You can hold down the power button and you can successfully shut down Win7.

When did you put the Vista Harddrive (HDD) back in and determine that you could again successfully boot Win7?

After booting Win7 that first time after reinstalling the Vista HDD, did you experience that shut down problem on the very first shut down–or was it after a period of time and some successful shut downs before the problem occurred?

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I know that you have a Win 7 installation disk but that might be quite old. The latest Win 7 iso that I recently downloaded from Microsoft totalled some 5.8MB, which means that you need a 8GB memory stick, but it appeared to have all but 19 updates already incorporated. It took me just over 3 hours from start to finish and it fixed my chkdsk cross-linked file problem!

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Previous advice here was that the Vista drive is needed to open W7. Replaced the Vista HD and with that W7 booted as expected, much to my relief. But the new pressing issue is that W7 will not shut down, gets hung up on the “shutting down” screen.

*NOT A PRESSING ISSUE*! An aggravation–yes. An annoyance–yes. Pressing–no! You can hold down the power button and you can successfully shut down Win7. When did you put the Vista Harddrive (HDD) back in and determine that you could again successfully boot Win7? After booting Win7 that first time after reinstalling the Vista HDD, did you experience that shut down problem on the very first shut down–or was it after a period of time and some successful shut downs before the problem occurred?

The shutdown issue arose right away after Vista was reinstalled, about three days ago.

If there is no downside to shutting down via the button, we’ll do that until things are straightened out. We’ve been using the “sleep” mode.

I know that you have a Win 7 installation disk but that might be quite old. The latest Win 7 iso that I recently downloaded from Microsoft totalled some 5.8MB, which means that you need a 8GB memory stick, but it appeared to have all but 19 updates already incorporated. It took me just over 3 hours from start to finish and it fixed my chkdsk cross-linked file problem!

Good point- if it comes to a reinstall, I’ll get an updated W7 download.

The concern now is that I’ve been repeatedly warned that shutting down via the power button is dangerous, sooner or later.

Have you been using the power button to shut down a lot in the past?

I do see what the concern is–if you force a shut down before Windows flushes it’s caches and writes necessary data to its open files, you could potentially corrupt a system file. But, if the system has in fact experienced a permanent freeze, then any data that has not already been saved is lost no matter what–holding down the power button or not.

When your Win7 system hangs during shut down–does the *activity* light on your tower show ongoing blinking indicating activity is occurring–or is it dark continuously? If it’s dark and showing no activity–it’s frozen and only the power button will recover from the problem. (This is where having a whole harddrive image backup can save you if some sort of permanent file corruption has occurred. Maybe the System Restore can do the same, but there’s no guarantee that the Restore Point has the system file available to restore–whereas an system image file would.)

As a first trouble shooting option, I would suggest that you boot to Safe Mode to see if that makes the problem go away. If it does, that indicates that it is probably some background service or software that’s disabled during Safe Mode that is the culprit, and we have a starting point to look for the problem.

Start Windows 7/Vista/XP in Safe Mode with Networking. Immediately after the computer is powered on or restarted (usually after you hear your computer beep), tap the F8 key in 1 second intervals. After your computer displays hardware information and runs a memory test, the Advanced Boot Options menu will appear.

Just the top option is fine–don’t need to select the *Safe Mode with Networking*, etc.

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The concern now is that I’ve been repeatedly warned that shutting down via the power button is dangerous, sooner or later.

Have you been using the power button to shut down a lot in the past? I do see what the concern is–if you force a shut down before Windows flushes it’s caches and writes necessary data to its open files, you could potentially corrupt a system file. But, if the system has in fact experienced a permanent freeze, then any data that has not already been saved is lost no matter what–holding down the power button or not. When your Win7 system hangs during shut down–does the *activity* light on your tower show ongoing blinking indicating activity is occurring–or is it dark continuously? If it’s dark and showing no activity–it’s frozen and only the power button will recover from the problem. (This is where having a whole harddrive image backup can save you if some sort of permanent file corruption has occurred. Maybe the System Restore can do the same, but there’s no guarantee that the Restore Point has the system file available to restore–whereas an system image file would.) As a first trouble shooting option, I would suggest that you boot to Safe Mode to see if that makes the problem go away. If it does, that indicates that it is probably some background service or software that’s disabled during Safe Mode that is the culprit, and we have a starting point to look for the problem. Do you know how to enter Safe Mode? Here’s a link: https://support.eset.com/kb2268/?locale=en_US&viewlocale=en_US Quoting:

Start Windows 7/Vista/XP in Safe Mode with Networking. Immediately after the computer is powered on or restarted (usually after you hear your computer beep), tap the F8 key in 1 second intervals. After your computer displays hardware information and runs a memory test, the Advanced Boot Options menu will appear.

Just the top option is fine–don’t need to select the *Safe Mode with Networking*, etc. Does shut down occur okay now?

We never used the power button to shut down, as we were cautioned against that, as mentioned. I’ll have to try shutting down and watch the case lights. Can’t recall what they did. I’ll let the shutdown procedure go for some time before I use the button. When I have the answer to your question, I’ll post back.

My weekly backup completed yesterday and no files have been changed since then. I expect that, after SR, I can update any changes to personal files using that backup.

To be clear, I think you do not understand how System Restore functions. It only backs up System Files. None of your personal files will be included in a Restore Point. So, unless you are backing up System Files to your *weekly backup*, you will not have the ability to restore any System File corruptions from that *weekly backup*. And, after using a Restore Point, none of your personal files will be changed–so your *weekly backup* will not be needed to update your personal files.

After doing the System Restore, you can see if the shut down problem has changed.

I would still recommend doing the boot to Safe Mode, first, to see if that has any effect on the shut down problem.

My weekly backup completed yesterday and no files have been changed since then. I expect that, after SR, I can update any changes to personal files using that backup.

To be clear, I think you do not understand how System Restore functions. It only backs up System Files. None of your personal files will be included in a Restore Point. So, unless you are backing up System Files to your *weekly backup*, you will not have the ability to restore any System File corruptions from that *weekly backup*. And, after using a Restore Point, none of your personal files will be changed–so your *weekly backup* will not be needed to update your personal files. After doing the System Restore, you can see if the shut down problem has changed. I would still recommend doing the boot to Safe Mode, first, to see if that has any effect on the shut down problem.

Just went through shutdown using Start menu. All on screen looked familiar. Screen message about program(s) preventing shutdown, “Force shutdown?” answered Yes- program preventing shutdown was Task Host Window. BUT- Shutdown completed as normal, much to my surprise.

Hmm… typically vague of Windows and good that it did not last an hour. This kind of “Task Host” delayed shutdown is still common to see in newer version of windows with no clear reason except any badly behaving program.

Please go to the Application & System sections of Event Viewer and see if there are logged events around the time of shutting down the computer. You may get lucky sometimes. 😉

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The shutdown issue arose right away after Vista was reinstalled, about three days ago.

Well, as you well know, during the time that the Vista HDD was removed, Win7 was totally inactive. The only active OS was Linux that had access to your Win7 HDD. I have no idea what that access may have done–if Linux has to modify any file(s), or add any files in order for it to have access to the HDD.

The only other time was the session you first booted after the reinstall of the Vista HDD. Can you think of anything you did during the time of that first bootup? Install any programs, uninstall any programs, any major setting changes, etc.?

*Sleep* and *Hibernate* or *Hybrid Hibernate* modes are known to be prone to issues–I don’t know if they would effect the *shut down* problem–but I do know from experience that I got locked out from my system when I could not successfully wake up from *hibernate*.

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The shutdown issue arose right away after Vista was reinstalled, about three days ago.

Well, as you well know, during the time that the Vista HDD was removed, Win7 was totally inactive. The only active OS was Linux that had access to your Win7 HDD. I have no idea what that access may have done–if Linux has to modify any file(s), or add any files in order for it to have access to the HDD. The only other time was the session you first booted after the reinstall of the Vista HDD. Can you think of anything you did during the time of that first bootup? Install any programs, uninstall any programs, any major setting changes, etc.?

*Sleep* and *Hibernate* or *Hybrid Hibernate* modes are know to be prone to issues–I don’t know if they would effect the *shut down* problem–but I do know from experience that I got locked out from my system when I could not successfully wake up from *hibernate*.

While Linux was running, and the W7 HD was in place, the Linux OS “saw” the 7 and allowed access to the 7 Pictures file. The Linux user manual says that, when Linux is installed in a dual boot situation, the Linux will offer the choice of which OS to open on startup, but this did not happen. I assume that was because the bootup capability of W7 had previously been co-opted by the Vista OS when they were running as dual boot.

I think at this point I should sit back and see what does or doesn’t happen through several cycles of booting up and shutting down W7.

While Linux was running, and the W7 HD was in place, the Linux OS “saw” the 7 and allowed access to the 7 Pictures file. The Linux user manual says that, when Linux is installed in a dual boot situation, the Linux will offer the choice of which OS to open on startup, but this did not happen.

Linux didn’t see the 7, per se. It saw that there was a drive with data on it that it was able to read (since it knows how to read NTFS), so it made it available to you, the user, to browse. That would have happened whether or not there was Windows on the drive or if it was nothing but the Windows Pictures directory.

It didn’t give you the choice of Windows with the Vista drive removed because as far as it was concerned, there wasn’t any Windows on the PC– which is the same conclusion the system BIOS/UEFI came to, since it was unbootable there too. They’re looking for the bootloader, and if it’s not there, it’s not possible to boot Windows, so there would be no use in putting Windows in a menu when it can’t be used. That doesn’t mean your Windows installation is not actually there, of course. You can go into Linux and browse the folders and see that it is right there on the disk, or install the Vista drive and see that 7 boots just fine, so clearly, it’s there. It’s just not usable as an OS without a means to boot it.

Once the bootloader is put on the 7 drive and GRUB is told to look again for other operating systems, it will then offer the choice as the manual says. You’re really close to being at that point, so don’t get discouraged now!

Totally your option. If you have some unexplained behavior and you want to test to see if it may be part of the problem–there’s no harm in disabling it, even if it’s only for a short period of time for testing.

Personally, after being locked out of my system for awhile (I was able to find a solution, but had to find a different computer to look it up on!), I have chosen not to use Sleep and/or Hibernation going forward.

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Do you advise shutting down in situations where one might use “sleep”?

I still use a screen saver, password protected, but I wouldn’t shut down unless it’s the end of a day, and I want to be power off over night. There are those who think it’s a bad idea to power down and back up frequently, even just for overnight. The argument is that the constant temperature change from up and running, and then power down (sleep or off) causes more wear and tear on electronic circuits and moving parts than just keeping the system up and running and maintaining a near constant running temperature.

I can relate to keeping the power on and the system running–I had one motherboard whose chip fan would wear out in about 1 year–started squealing each morning for a couple minutes–eventually quieting down–but only replacement eliminated the problem for about another year. After I finally kept the system running 24/7–never had to replace that fan again! I suspect that applies to spinning disk HDDs too. So, I’m becoming more of a let’em run unless there’s a reason to shut down.

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There are those who think it’s a bad idea to power down and back up frequently, even just for overnight. The argument is that the constant temperature change from up and running, and then power down (sleep or off) causes more wear and tear on electronic circuits and moving parts than just keeping the system up and running and maintaining a near constant running temperature.

I used to operate under that assumption… my first PC, which I lovingly built in 1990, was on all the time, and S3 (standby/sleep) wasn’t an option. Part of it was about the convenience of not having to wait for it to boot, but part was this idea about longevity.

I don’t subscribe to that idea anymore, though. The temperatures are nowhere close to relatively constant unless the load on each component the system is relatively constant. Using the PC causes spikes in activity that heat up many bits of the PC, from the PSU to the CPU to the PCH to the motherboard VRM, and if you’re not running that kind of load constantly, it’s going to go through significant heating and cooling cycles from minute to minute anyway.

On top of that, the system is full of capacitors, and they’d much rather be warm for only short bursts and spend the rest of the time cool. Their service life shortens markedly with temperature, and the longer that high temperature is maintained, the quicker the cap will tend to fail. As long as the voltage and other electrical limits of the capacitor are observed, heat is the best predictor of a capacitor’s longevity.

Other items in the PC have similar characteristics, but in a less pronounced way. Even the CPU chip itself is subject to this, though the failure rate of CPUs of any age that haven’t been abused somehow is very, very low. They do degrade over time, and the hotter they run, the more that degradation will take place. It will probably be obsolete before this has any noticeable effect on non-overclocked CPUs, but it’s still taking place.

Now, if you use standby, the system cools just as much as if you’d shut it down, for all intents and purposes. To get any benefit from the constant-heat effect, you’d have to keep it under some load all the time.

I only shut my PCs down if I am going to be working on them, or if it’s a laptop, if it is about to be taken somewhere where I won’t be using it for several hours, or if it will be in a laptop bag or such where it could be damaged by the lack of ventilation if it inadvertently resumes (there have been complaints about laptops waking to install Windows 10 updates and overheating, or else running their batteries down, since they do not return to standby after the updates were complete. I don’t use Windows 10, but still, I’d rather not risk it).

Otherwise, I just use standby, set to lock the session as soon as the standby command is issued, so it will prompt for the password on resume each time.

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Do you advise shutting down in situations where one might use “sleep”?

I still use a screen saver, password protected, but I wouldn’t shut down unless it’s the end of a day, and I want to be power off over night. There are those who think it’s a bad idea to power down and back up frequently, even just for overnight. The argument is that the constant temperature change from up and running, and then power down (sleep or off) causes more wear and tear on electronic circuits and moving parts than just keeping the system up and running and maintaining a near constant running temperature. I can relate to keeping the power on and the system running–I had one motherboard whose chip fan would wear out in about 1 year–started squealing each morning for a couple minutes–eventually quieting down–but only replacement eliminated the problem for about another year. After I finally kept the system running 24/7–never had to replace that fan again! I suspect that applies to spinning disk HDDs too. So, I’m becoming more of a let’em run unless there’s a reason to shut down.

Thanks again for your insight. I’ll post back when I have some experience to report.

Searching “Task Host Window- Windows 7” brings up a number of hits relating shutdown problems to this app. Apparently Microsoft has identified a problem and has a Hotfix available. This repair is offered for downloading by at least one third-party site. I’m more inclined to look for this directly from MS, but not sure what route to follow. Comments?

Looks like MS recommends the Hotfix if the Task Host Window pop-up or screen appears. In my case, that doesn’t happen, but THW is cited as preventing shutdown. MS mentions an update to be issued for this. Should I wait for that or apply the Hotfix?

While Linux was running, and the W7 HD was in place, the Linux OS “saw” the 7 and allowed access to the 7 Pictures file. The Linux user manual says that, when Linux is installed in a dual boot situation, the Linux will offer the choice of which OS to open on startup, but this did not happen.

Linux didn’t see the 7, per se. It saw that there was a drive with data on it that it was able to read (since it knows how to read NTFS), so it made it available to you, the user, to browse. That would have happened whether or not there was Windows on the drive or if it was nothing but the Windows Pictures directory. It didn’t give you the choice of Windows with the Vista drive removed because as far as it was concerned, there wasn’t any Windows on the PC– which is the same conclusion the system BIOS/UEFI came to, since it was unbootable there too. They’re looking for the bootloader, and if it’s not there, it’s not possible to boot Windows, so there would be no use in putting Windows in a menu when it can’t be used. That doesn’t mean your Windows installation is not actually there, of course. You can go into Linux and browse the folders and see that it is right there on the disk, or install the Vista drive and see that 7 boots just fine, so clearly, it’s there. It’s just not usable as an OS without a means to boot it. Once the bootloader is put on the 7 drive and GRUB is told to look again for other operating systems, it will then offer the choice as the manual says. You’re really close to being at that point, so don’t get discouraged now!

My earnest thanks to you for following this thread and offering your guidance and insight. After poking around a bit I see that the delayed shutdown may not be the result of my manipulations with this PC as there is an issue known to MS re Task Host Window, which is named (but not shown in a window) as preventing shutdown. Not sure if I should follow up with that at this point, or not. In any case, since I now have two consecutive normal shutdowns, my best bet may be to sit back and monitor the situation.

Since it appears that The PC is back to its condition from before the Mint install, there’s no need to rush off and do anything without some additional context.

BTW, interesting that, when the Linux and W7 HD’s were installed, the Mint OS would show the W7 Pictures folder, but nothing else from that OS- no Docs, etc. But that doesn’t need to be addressed.

Looks like MS recommends the Hotfix if the Task Host Window pop-up or screen appears. In my case, that doesn’t happen, …. Should I wait for that or apply the Hotfix?

If it’s not causing a problem, at least at the moment, I would recommend to not fix what isn’t broken. You can store this information somewhere where you can easily find it again–like a bookmark to that MS hotfix page–come back to it if you need it in the future.

If the problem does return, I would try some other trouble shooting first, before assuming I need to apply the hotfix.

Again, just me and my opinion.

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Update re W7 performance as of Thursday a.m.- last Tuesday, 3/5, had two normal shutdowns out of two. Yesterday, 3/6, had two normal (but slow last step) and one hang-up on the “shutting down” screen. Also, a few freeze-ups while working with files/ folders in Explorer. I recall that, over at least the last few weeks, there was on shutdown the message re programs preventing shutdown and the program shown was Task Host Window. But the system did shut down without intervention before I began playing musical chairs with the hard disks. This is apparently a known problem for MS and there is a “hotfix” available and there will be an update issued for this at some point.

I see it as important to get W7 working properly both on startup and shutdown before I once again substitute the Mint HD for Vista. Perhaps the first step is System Restore, then tackle the shutdown hangup.

I recall that, over at least the last few weeks, there was on shutdown the message re programs preventing shutdown and the program shown was Task Host Window. But the system did shut down without intervention …

Well, that appears to be *new information* that you had not mentioned in your previous posts.

So, looking back over the *last few weeks*–did you make any major changes in your system that may have triggered that shut down message? Installed new software? Uninstalled old software? Reconfigured settings? Usually, with computers, there’s a *cause and effect*, but I know sometimes it’s hard to remember when a problem first occurred, and what you might have been doing just before the problem occurred. Just FYI, it would be a good practice to jot down a note, with date and time, to yourself whenever something that’s new and out of the ordinary happens–just in case you need to go back and address an issue.

This is apparently a known problem for MS and there is a “hotfix” available …

So, the problem with this is MS did not clearly explain what triggers this problem. I don’t have the problem on my system. Scanning the Internet–it does not look like a large percentage of folks are having this problem–seems more isolated–so my take away is that the hotfix may or may not address whatever the issue is. Probably won’t hurt to try it–but remember–there are *causes and effects*–you don’t know ahead of time if all is going to go well. If you had a *whole drive imaging* backup in place that allowed you to restore back to the most recent *image* (I take images prior to all major installs, prior to all Windows Updates being downloaded and applied, prior to any experimenting of new settings for Windows or other programs, and prior to updates to various other software programs–just to be safe, and making sure I can go back if something goes wrong–it’s really liberating to know that you can do that!), that would really be an ideal safety net so you could do these changes without worrying. (You had mentioned in one of your posts that you had tried an imaging program, something had gone wrong, and you have not gone back to try and resolve what ever that problem may have been.)

Below that post, you were given a number of different suggestions–there’s no evidence that you followed up on those suggestions–you may not have understood what was being offered as possible next troubleshooting steps.

But, the bottom line, if you have that many errors being reported, there’s a strong possibility that buried somewhere in that list is an event that may be effecting the shut down of your system.

Will a System Restore make whatever that event is go away? Who knows? You can sort the Event log by *Date and Time*–note the time of shut down, and the next reboot, look for any events with that approx. time. You can sort the Event log by *Event* number–you can see how many entries of a given event happen at the time of shut down. You can sort the Event log by *Task*–you can see if any of the entries around shut down have anything to do with *shut down*.

The event viewer sections Application and System will be the best place to look for critical errors.

Your screen shot is of the *Administrative Events*–there are other Event logs as mentioned above to look at as well.

This is what I meant before in one of my other posts–there are other *troubleshooting* efforts that can be done besides looking for a quick fix of a *hotfix* or a System Restore. And there are actually *more* trouble shooting that can be done besides what’s mention so far above.

You will have to decide what you want to do next …

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I recall that, over at least the last few weeks, there was on shutdown message re programs preventing shutdown and the program shown was Task Host Window</span>. But the system did shut down without intervention …

Well, that appears to be *new information* that you had not mentioned in your previous posts. So, looking back over the *last few weeks*–did you make any major changes in your system that may have triggered that shut down message? Installed new software? Uninstalled old software? Reconfigured settings? Usually, with computers, there’s a *cause and effect*, but I know sometimes it’s hard to remember when a problem first occurred, and what you might have been doing just before the problem occurred. Just FYI, it would be a good practice to jot down a note, with date and time, to yourself whenever something that’s new and out of the ordinary happens–just in case you need to go back and address an issue.

This is apparently a known problem for MS and there is a “hotfix” available …

So, the problem with this is MS did not clearly explain what triggers this problem. I don’t have the problem on my system. Scanning the Internet–it does not look like a large percentage of folks are having this problem–seems more isolated–so my take away is that the hotfix may or may not address whatever the issue is. Probably won’t hurt to try it–but remember–there are *causes and effects*–you don’t know ahead of time if all is going to go well. If you had a *whole drive imaging* backup in place that allowed you to restore back to the most recent *image* (I take images prior to all major installs, prior to all Windows Updates being downloaded and applied, prior to any experimenting of new settings for Windows or other programs, and prior to updates to various other software programs–just to be safe, and making sure I can go back if something goes wrong–it’s really liberating to know that you can do that!), that would really be an ideal safety net so you could do these changes without worrying. (You had mentioned in one of your posts that you had tried an imaging program, something had gone wrong, and you have not gone back to try and resolve what ever that problem may have been.) So, there’s a huge *elephant* in the room!

To be fair, looking at the screenshot, Event Viewer reports 6,602 *events*–not all of those are necessarily *errors*–some *events* are simply notifications and not *errors*. But, looking at the screenshot, it looks like there are a lot of *errors* listed in that very small sample.

Below that post, you were given a number of different suggestions–there’s no evidence that you followed up on those suggestions–you may not have understood what was being offered as possible next troubleshooting steps. But, the bottom line, if you have that many errors being reported, there’s a strong possibility that buried somewhere in that list is an event that may be effecting the shut down of your system. Will a System Restore make whatever that event is go away? Who knows? You can sort the Event log by *Date and Time*–note the time of shut down, and the next reboot, look for any events with that approx. time. You can sort the Event log by *Event* number–you can see how many entries of a given event happen at the time of shut down. You can sort the Event log by *Task*–you can see if any of the entries around shut down have anything to do with *shut down*.

The event viewer sections will be the best place to look for critical errors.

Your screen shot is of the *Administrative Events*–there are other Event logs as mentioned above to look at as well. This is what I meant before in one of my other posts–there are other *troubleshooting* efforts that can be done besides looking for a quick fix of a *hotfix* or a System Restore. And there are actually *more* trouble shooting that can be done besides what’s mention so far above. You will have to decide what you want to do next …

The background to this is that I am extremely uncomfortable with the suggestions offered, because I do not trust my ability to understand or carry them out correctly.

Re the “Task Host Window” message, I only remembered in retrospect having seen it and, since until lately, the system did shut down, so I didn’t recognize it as significant. But, looking back, this PC has shut down in leisurely fashion for perhaps months, although never getting hung up until this last week or two.

I’m mostly over my head here, and apprehensive of making some irreversible mistake. Since this is my first and only computer, I have no context re what is or isn’t a problem, which is why I didn’t mention the “Task Host Window” item before. I didn’t se it as a problem until I saw the MS site. Sorry to be so thick, but I’m trying to understand and doing the best I can.

It does seem logical that this W7 disk needs to be straightened out at both ends, bootup and shutdown, before anything else.

@slowpoke47, it seems to me that you’ll never be able to resolve the Windows 7 bootup issue, and reach your destination of having Linux installed, until you clear the hurdle of making an image backup. Having a backup really frees you up to experiment, make mistakes, and learn from them. (For example, you can then try some of the methods that have been proposed to create a boot sector on your Windows 7 drive, and be assured that you haven’t lost anything if the attempt messes something up.)

So I would recommend that you review the threads that are linked to in this post. At the end of it, with any luck you will have a clear idea of what to do. And of course, feel free to ask for additional details or guidance at any step of the backup process.

NEW IDEA: As I was thinking about the overarching issue, it occurred to me that you may not need to ditch the Vista disk (which enables your Windows 7 to boot up) in order to have Linux. How big (in GB capacity) is your Vista disk? If space allows, maybe you can create a new empty partition past the Vista partitions, and install Linux there.

In effect, you’d have a triple-booting computer, with Vista and Linux on one drive and Windows 7 on the other. I have one PC that’s triple-booting XP, Vista, and Kubuntu Linux on a single hard drive; if you can select from two OSes in two different drives, you should equally be able to select from three OSes in two drives.

This approach would bypass the whole issue of not being able to boot into Windows 7, while still allowing you to boot into Linux and use it.

We’d still need to address the “no shutdown” issue, but this would be a big step toward your objective.

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@Slowpoke47-
I’ve been following your ‘adventure’… and as a fellow non-techy, I know that it is easy to get overwhelmed by things that others find routine. I’ve admired your courage and persistence in continuing to problem solve.

It really changed my perspective, last year, to have to replace a failing hard drive. I decided not to copy my current system, because I’d experimented a lot, and had a lot of unnecessary programs and files on it. It took some work, but I was able to start over on a new disk… and add just the updating, programs and personal files I wanted. I went through being terrified, anxious, etc… even when sure of what needed to be done, just because my laptop is so precious to me… and because I do not have the money to replace it. Luckily (after lots of research, and having multiple back ups) it all turned out well. Really, having all the back ups, allowed me to feel able to experiment…

You were attempting to do one thing, and then had problems… exactly where most of us freak and stop experimenting. Having an image backup will allow you to restore your hardrive/computer, back to your best known state… which should reassure you. It took having an external hard drive enclosure hooked up to my computer to reassure me… I had to actually see and be able to browse through both the drive on my computer, and other hard drives, and see that what I wanted was there, in both places. Otherwise it all felt like some kind of not well understood magic for me, and my anxiety was based on thinking I would probably do something wrong and permanently mess it up. Once I knew that I could completely mess up one hard drive, and still have another one to function, I relaxed, and have felt easier about experimenting since then. In the long run, getting to move to Linux will be important to a lot of people… and thus documenting what you have or have not done is helping all of us learn.

I didn’t see mentioned something I’d read, and haven’t been able to find again… and my memory about it is poor… but it was about how Windows doesn’t play well with others, and that it is easier to have it primary (first) in a double boot situation, as attempting to put the Linux OS first will often mess up being able to boot back to Windows. Because I can’t find the reference, I may be getting the terminology wrong… maybe someone else could correct or help here.

We still have an old Vista laptop that I’m hoping to put some form of Linux on (probably a more light weight distro than Mint)… but I’ve had a lot of medical issues that have been slowing down my experimentation. I just want to say, please, don’t give up, as I’m sure what all of us are learning, whether it is problems encountered, ways to diagnose, or how to better guide non-techies through the process, your documentation of your experiences are valuable. So… have back ups… and continue forth, for all the rest of us facing the same Windows 7 EOL… Please…

Non-techy Win 10 Pro and Linux Mint experimenter

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I would like to be there to solve your problem. You would learn some knowledge from me, but not experience the personal satisfaction of overcoming fear of the unknown nor gain the skill-set to do it yourself.

Just before this fiasco, I reconfigured the LAN here to connect one of the printers directly to the network rather than to this PC via USB cable as before. That resulted in another horror show, trying to make the PC find the printer in the new arrangement and ultimately led to having to reinstall all the printer software. Some decidedly odd things happened with that, documented here and https://computerhelpforums.com/. In the end, the exact same steps that failed at first later worked.

At that time, as now, the Vista and W7 disks were installed and functioning, but without the current shutdown issue (BTW, in 7 only, Vista shuts down without incident)..

@slowpoke47, it seems to me that you’ll never be able to resolve the Windows 7 bootup issue, and reach your destination of having Linux installed, until you clear the hurdle of making an image backup.

I did attempt this with Macrium Reflect, trial subscription ongoing, but At some point the program told me that the space needed for the image was ‘way bigger than any media I had on hand, IIRC several hundred GB, so I abandoned the effort. But I could have misunderstood that info.

NEW IDEA: As I was thinking about the overarching issue, it occurred to me that you may not need to ditch the Vista disk (which enables your Windows 7 to boot up) in order to have Linux. How big (in GB capacity) is your Vista disk? If space allows, maybe you can create a new empty partition past the Vista partitions, and install Linux there. In effect, you’d have a triple-booting computer, with Vista and Linux on one drive and Windows 7 on the other. I have one PC that’s triple-booting XP, Vista, and Kubuntu Linux on a single hard drive; if you can select from two OSes in two different drives, you should equally be able to select from three OSes in two drives. This approach would bypass the whole issue of not being able to boot into Windows 7, while still allowing you to boot into Linux and use it. We’d still need to address the “no shutdown” issue, but this would be a big step toward your objective.

That’s an interesting suggestion, but the reason for the new HD is that the old one is just that, old- and it seemed that a new drive would last longer.

Note my comment above within the highlighted quote- I don’t know how to quote using less than the full original.

I did attempt this with Macrium Reflect, trial subscription ongoing, but At some point the program told me that the space needed for the image was ‘way bigger than any media I had on hand, IIRC several hundred GB, so I abandoned the effort. But I could have misunderstood that info.

The Reflect message that you report doesn’t ring a bell, but it sounds like the disk where you wanted to store the backup image wasn’t big enough. You might try attempting the image again, but making sure to select one of the “compressed” file settings during the process of setting up the backup. I usually choose the “medium compressed” setting.

That’s an interesting suggestion, but the reason for the new HD is that the old one is just that, old- and it seemed that a new drive would last longer. Note my comment above within the highlighted quote- I don’t know how to quote using less than the full original.

No doubt you’re right that a new HDD will last longer, but if you can image the current Vista drive with Macrium, then you can put the image on a new, blank HDD and plug it in. The new drive could even be a larger one to fit Vista and Linux comfortably. Then, after verifying that both Vista and Windows 7 boot up as normal with the new Vista drive in place, you can proceed to try installing Linux on that drive alongside Vista, and then see if you can boot into all three OSes.

Regarding how to quote less than the original, the only way that I know of is to delete the parts of the quote that I don’t need, as if I were editing a document. If I think that I might be responding to more than one thing from the quote (like in this post), then I’ll highlight the whole quote and copy it to the editing box here, and delete the appropriate sections of each copy so that my replies address each respective part.

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Windows doesn’t play well with others, and that it is easier to have it primary (first) in a double boot situation, as attempting to put the Linux OS first will often mess up being able to boot back to Windows.

I’ll be making another attempt at a system image shortly.

Thanks for the encouragement. Before I can test that out, the W7 disk has to be straightened out. Interestingly, the Mint user manual says that it does in fact play well with others, whether the reverse is true, unknown.

I wonder if this is how Lewis and Clark felt in their forays into the unknown.

Linux Mint Mate 19.2

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I did attempt this with Macrium Reflect, trial subscription ongoing, but At some point the program told me that the space needed for the image was ‘way bigger than any media I had on hand, IIRC several hundred GB, so I abandoned the effort. But I could have misunderstood that info.

The Reflect message that you report doesn’t ring a bell, but it sounds like the disk where you wanted to store the backup image wasn’t big enough. You might try attempting the image again, but making sure to select one of the “compressed” file settings during the process of setting up the backup. I usually choose the “medium compressed” setting.

That’s an interesting suggestion, but the reason for the new HD is that the old one is just that, old- and it seemed that a new drive would last longer. Note my comment above within the highlighted quote- I don’t know how to quote using less than the full original.

No doubt you’re right that a new HDD will last longer, but if you can image the current Vista drive with Macrium, then you can put the image on a new, blank HDD and plug it in. The new drive could even be a larger one to fit Vista and Linux comfortably. Then, after verifying that both Vista and Windows 7 boot up as normal with the new Vista drive in place, you can proceed to try installing Linux on that drive alongside Vista, and then see if you can boot into all three OSes. Regarding how to quote less than the original, the only way that I know of is to delete the parts of the quote that I don’t need, as if I were editing a document. If I think that I might be responding to more than one thing from the quote (like in this post), then I’ll highlight the whole quote and copy it to the editing box here, and delete the appropriate sections of each copy so that my replies address each respective part.

Have to leave off on this for today, but maybe you could answer one question- what sort of capacity range is usually needed for a system image? Thanks!

The answer depends mainly on two factors: whether you compress the backup image and how much stuff is on the drive that you’re imaging. A third factor is how compressible the data is, as some types of files are more amenable to compression than others.

In my case, by using Medium compression, Reflect creates a ~165GB image from my Vista C: and D: drives which together amount to some 285GB. (That’s the stuff on the drives, not the total capacity of the drives.)

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Look at current prices of two terabyte drives. Final image file size will depend on the fullness of the drive to be imaged, compression settings, ability for the backup program to ignore unused sectors and skip certain windows files.

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You can find some really weird model-specific add-on software on some devices…

As in every now and then you might well a find Windows 7 system that leaves the NTFS in a state that Linux NTFS drivers recognize as “hibernated or fast startup enabled” after supposedly “shutting down”.

Of course some of that will be people putting the thing in hibernation or hybrid sleep instead of actual shutdown, but anyway.

Regarding how to quote less than the original, the only way that I know of is to delete the parts of the quote that I don’t need, as if I were editing a document.

It’s actually easy–just use your mouse to highlight the section of text you wish to quote, and then hit the *QUOTE* button that’s at the bottom, right corner of the post–that will place the highlighted material as quoted material in the Reply Box at the bottom of the thread for you.

As above, I have quoted from two different posts and each is referenced as to the source and only the highlighted text has been brought in here.

If you want or need to get fancier and bring in a quote from another topic–just open a new webpage to that topic, highlight the material you want to bring in, and again press the *QUOTE* button. Copy the material that gets put into the Reply Box of that other topic, and then Paste that to the current topic–so like this:

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It’s actually easy–just use your mouse to highlight the section of text you wish to quote, and then hit the *QUOTE* button that’s at the bottom, right corner of the post–that will place the highlighted material as quoted material in the Reply Box at the bottom of the thread for you.

Many thanks for this. I’m trying to further my computer skills, but that knowledge is full of holes, although greatly assisted by those such as yourself who know what to do in a given situation and provide guidance.

I’ve saved your post for reference.

Linux Mint Mate 19.2

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Thanks to all who posted. Trying now to figure out what to do and in what order. I now realize that System Restore is not the way to go because, as mentioned, that would purge the printer drivers, which I recently reinstalled after a LAN reconfiguration. The printer is no longer supported by HP and the software reinstall took a tortuous path, to say the least. Now that all is ok there, I don’t want to take any chances with it.

3. Reinstall HD with Mint OS in place of Vista and look for usable dual boot on startup. My first choice would be to eliminate Vista completely.

As suggested, I will make another attempt to make a system image, need to find a suitable ext. drive, may not succeed locally (small town). Please see screenshot, shows total of less than 220GB used. I understand that a 250GB ext. drive is not enough for this image, but would 500GB be ok?

I’m mostly over my head here, and apprehensive of making some irreversible mistake. Since this is my first and only computer, I have no context re what is or isn’t a problem, …

Don’t underestimate yourself! It looks like you have been computing with this originally Vista based system for some time now. I’ve seen evidence that you are doing certain things that suggests you are less than a *novice* computer user.

It does seem logical that this W7 disk needs to be straightened out at both ends, bootup and shutdown, before anything else.

I agree. I’m going to have to be away from my computer for the rest of the day and evening, so I probably won’t be commenting until tomorrow at the soonest. But, we need to do some non-invasive troubleshooting to see where the trouble might be with the shut down issue. I’ll walk you through it, one item at a time, so we can see the results. (By the way, you will need some of the skills I’m going to ask you to try if you want to reach the point of having your Win7 booting independently of your Vista harddrive.)

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I understand that a 250GB ext. drive is not enough for this image, but would 500GB be ok?

I have a 2 TB (Terabyte) WD (Western Digital) USB 3.0 Passport external harddrive for images. It can be used on systems that only have USB 2.0 abilities–just slower–but you have what you have unless you want to upgrade your hardware. I can store multiple images and can go back several months. I start deleting the oldest images when the external harddrive starts getting full to make room for new image backups.

These have been available at our local Costco for approx. $90.00–cheaper if on sale. I think I’ve seen capacities for this type harddrive at 3 and 4 TBs, but the 2 TB has been very adequate.

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A 500GB drive will definitely be OK for your purpose. However, that 250GB drive should also be OK, even without compression, unless it currently has enough stuff on it that there’s not enough space left over for the image that you want to make.

The only ext. drive I have currently is set up with a downloadable Linux Mint which got me set up with that OS on the new HD for this machine. I’m saving that for the Mint addition to our laptop, also now using 7, once I get this mess fixed. Since I know that download is correct, but was unable to check the ISO image as suggested, I’ll keep that aside as a known quantity.

So I’ll get another ext. medium for this effort- may want to keep that for future reference as well (if successful) since I expect to keep 7 indefinitely. But I have been told that approaching the stated capacity in a case like this is not recommended.

In the backup programs I use, there is a check box to indicate what you want to backup: mbr, C:, Restore, OEM, etc.
Depending on what you choose to back up, you can back up anything from only the C: partition to the whole enchilada.

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Proud new owner of 1TB Seagate ext. drive. $49 at Walmart. Tomorrow I’ll try again for a system image. But, a question- won’t the system image also capture the boot and shutdown problems?

Yes, that’s the whole idea: to have a backup of your current Windows 7 drive so that you can try different things on the original drive to fix the shutdown problem, and then if anything goes wrong to be able to go back to the current state.

You want to image EVERYTHING on that disk, including the boot sector, OEM partition, etc.

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In the backup programs I use, there is a check box to indicate what you want to backup: mbr, C:, Restore, OEM, etc. Depending on what you choose to back up, you can back up anything from only the C: partition to the whole enchilada.

I’ve been backing up automatically with Veeam. It’s set up to back up files every week and the whole shebang monthly.

The new drive is so I can attempt a system image as the first step in correcting my boot and shutdown issues- I believe the advice to do that before diving in. Didn’t want to co-opt the backup drive. I’ll be doing that tomorrow morning.

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Proud new owner of 1TB Seagate ext. drive. $49 at Walmart. Tomorrow I’ll try again for a system image. But, a question- won’t the system image also capture the boot and shutdown problems?

Yes, that’s the whole idea: to have a backup of your current Windows 7 drive so that you can try different things on the original drive to fix the shutdown problem, and then if anything goes wrong to be able to go back to the current state. You want to image EVERYTHING on that disk, including the boot sector, OEM partition, etc.

Thanks for that- I’ll be working on the image this morning, once I get the year-end docs ready. Meanwhile, in the course of some accounting work within Windows Explorer, I still get occasional screen freezes, no idea if this is a separate issue or not…

Another question- if I use the same usb port on the PC for the new ext. drive as I do for the usual backup drive, should I expect any “confusion” on the part of the OS?

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Just looked at Error Reporting in System Information, dozens of entries, not in chronological order, dating to last Sept. No clue what if anything to do with this info. File too big to attach, here’s a screenshot of part of the list:

Linux Mint Mate 19.2

Attachments:

That newest entry from earlier this week could be a vital bit of information. If you want to see what the faulting application is just move the mouse cursor over the “Faulting applica…” area then wait until you see a yellow tool-tip box.

One problem at a time if possible…

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I had to swing by our local Costco yesterday–they now carry the Seagate 2 TB USB 3.0 drive, and not the WD external drive (if I remember correctly, Seagate and WD are the same company–just different *brand* names). Their price was $75 for that Seagate external drive.

Of course, you may not have a Costco nearby to consider as a source option.

Another question- if I use the same usb port on the PC for the new ext. drive as I do for the usual backup drive, should I expect any “confusion” on the part of the OS?

Windows tries to *remember* what USB devices have been previously hooked up, and if it’s been disconnected for a time Windows attempts to re-assign the same drive letter the next time it sees that device–but, if for whatever reason Windows can not or will not assign the same drive letter, it will simply re-use a drive letter and assign the re-used drive letter to a new device, and the system will just continue.

The only *confusion* factor is usually on the part of the user seeing an unexpected drive letter on a new device. But, if you are paying attention, it’s not hard to follow what’s going on!

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The drive I bought is a Seagate. System sees it when connected via included usb cable. Attempting system image via Macrium but stuck on destination- looks like the only destinations offered are a folder to be specified or a CD/DVD.

The choices under “alternate locations do not include the ext. disk. What am I doing wrong?

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That newest entry from earlier this week could be a vital bit of information. If you want to see what the faulting application is just move the mouse cursor over the “Faulting applica…” area then wait until you see a yellow tool-tip box. One problem at a time if possible…

The three dots (…) on the right side ot the “Folder” pulldown will probably give you access to the folder on your external drive that you created to put the backup in.

Thanks- I’ll start over and try that. At this point I’m gun-shy about just about any move I make. When I selected the first item in the left pane, which looked to me to be the path to a system image, the screen in the s/shot came up, including the new drive, not visible in the s/shot. It was selected as part of the image, as are the others but I unchecked it, seemed like the right thing to do since I want it to be the destination. I looked at the Macrium user guide but it is somewhat over my head re terminology.

I’ve been backing up automatically with Veeam. It’s set up to back up files every week and the whole shebang monthly.

You’re in a *perfect* position to test your backup solution. (Note: creating a backup is only half of the process of using imaging as a solution–until you successfully create a successful *restore*, you do not know if you can actually recover from a disaster situation.)

Switch out your Win7 HDD for your Linux HDD. (Does Veeam only run under the Windows OS? If so, you may not be able to do the next step(s).)

Create a whole drive backup of the Linux HDD. (One really needs the ability to boot to some sort of *recovery media* that allows for backup and/or restore of a backup to whatever HDD is needed. Maybe you can boot to the Vista OS and use your Veeam backup software from there?)

Now, restore the backup of your Win7 HDD to the Linux HDD. Now, re-boot and can you select the Win7 OS and bring up that OS successfully? If yes, your backup and restore functions are working as they should. If not, then something is missing or not configured quite right and needs to be worked on.

And, now restore the backup of the Linux HDD to the HDD that has the restored Win7 on it. Re-boot and does Linux come up successfully. If yes, your backup and restore functions are working as they should.

And finally, replace the Linux HDD with the Un-Touched Win7 HDD and you are right back where you started from, and if everything worked as planned, you now know that your backup and restore functions are operational, and you can count on them in a disaster situation!

If any of these steps did not work, then we need to troubleshoot what’s not working.

Note, that throughout these testing procedures, your original Win7 HDD is never at *risk*–it is removed from the system for safe keeping, and we never attempt to restore to your *production* Win7 HDD–i.e. the HDD you currently use for everyday computing.

Did this make sense? Questions?

(I’m not familiar with the Veeam software. Is it an *imaging* program, or is it a *backup* program–there actually is a difference.)

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Ah, see that you are attempting to use Macrium, and not Veeam software.

The need for being able to boot to *Recovery Media* is still a valid need. You will not be able to restore an OS partition from within the OS partition that is up and running–so can not run Macrium from the Win7 OS partition, and restore that Win7 OS partition. There’s no problem creating backup images while running Macrium from the Win7 OS, just can not restore those images.

Until you get to the point of removing the Vista HDD, you can probably run Macrium from the Vista OS, and restore the Win7 OS to the Win7 HDD, but once you remove the Vista HDD, then you will not have a second Win OS to boot to and use for restoring the Win7 OS partition.

Just to clarify, what I mean by a *perfect* position–you have that *spare* Linux HDD that is not *critical* to your day to day computing–you can *sacrifice* it to testing without loosing *everything*. So test until you have everything setup right, and you’re comfortable with the outcomes.

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At this point my confusion is about complete. NightOwl, you are correct that I am not a “novice” but my skills are anecdotal, with no training, and as such have multiple gaps. I am doing the best I can to recover from my missteps using the guidance here, but the level of my understanding presumed by many of the advisors here is overly optimistic. I’m sure that, in attempting to follow the suggestions, I’ve just been complicating the issue.

For context, here is a snapshot of the current situation:

Both Vista and W7 HD’s are installed. Either will boot up as expected, and Vista shuts down without incident. In 7, I’ve been getting freezes in Explorer which I escape using esc or by selecting the “close the program” option in the pop-up. The shutdown of 7 is successful about ¾ of the time, albeit usually slowly. The message at shutdown that Task Host Window is preventing shutdown began appearing occasionally some weeks (or months) back, but never stopped shutdown. Now, of course, it appears every time. The W7 OS has been scanned for malware, chkdsk and sfscan came back clean.

For the last few weeks I have used the Veeam app for weekly backups and a week ago installed the Macrium Reflect program to make a system image, both suggested here. Once this is posted, I’ll try the image again, with the tip posted above by PKCano.

I believe the three issues to address, in order are:

Correct the W7 shutdown issue

Repair the W7 bootup to allow starting without Vista

Resubstituting the Mint HD for the Vista, which has nothing on it that needs to be saved.

But, I am at a loss as to just where to go from here for the reasons mentioned.

Attachments:

That screen looks different from the version of Macrium Reflect that I have. Is that what you got when you clicked on the “Next” button in post #339388?

I don’t know what the options might be under the drop-down menu in the first button in section 3. However, since you are looking to create just a single one-time image (for now, anyway), I would uncheck the boxes for “Differential” and “Incremental” and then set the number of backups for “Full” at 1. Also, please click on the buttons at right that say “Backups”; I’m curious to know what options they are offering you other than backups.

If the software allows you, leave item 1 at “None” and do nothing with item 2.

Before clicking on “Next,” click on “Advanced Options” down in the left corner. If your version of Reflect is anything like mine, this is where you get to set the compression level (I recommend “medium”) and whether to shut down the PC after the backup is finished (don’t select it to shut down). You can also add a comment line describing the image file. I would also tell it to “verify” the image.

Now you can click on “Next” and get the image creation process going. Come back here if you run into any other glitches or if you have any questions.

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Should have added to my previous post- I understand if anyone throws up their hands in annoyance and gives up on this thread. For those who know all this stuff, I can easily see how frustration can arise.

That screen looks different from the version of Macrium Reflect that I have. Is that what you got when you clicked on the “Next” button in post #339388? I don’t know what the options might be under the drop-down menu in the first button in section 3. However, since you are looking to create just a single one-time image (for now, anyway), I would uncheck the boxes for “Differential” and “Incremental” and then set the number of backups for “Full” at 1. Also, please click on the buttons at right that say “Backups”; I’m curious to know what options they are offering you other than backups. If the software allows you, leave item 1 at “None” and do nothing with item 2. Before clicking on “Next,” click on “Advanced Options” down in the left corner. If your version of Reflect is anything like mine, this is where you get to set the compression level (I recommend “medium”) and whether to shut down the PC after the backup is finished (don’t select it to shut down). You can also add a comment line describing the image file. I would also tell it to “verify” the image. Now you can click on “Next” and get the image creation process going. Come back here if you run into any other glitches or if you have any questions.

Followed all steps. The “Backup” down arrow offers three choices- Backup, Days, or Weeks. Items 1 and 2 left as you suggest, as yet no objections from the app. The Advanced button offers the options you cite, and a couple more that were self explanatory. About to click “next.”

About 1:42 later- Macrium says “complete” and “Verified” and Start>Computer shows a large file added to the Seagate drive. Is the next step just to disconnect it and set it aside, or is there some intermediate step?

Linux Mint Mate 19.2

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Thanks for the great news, @slowpoke47. We’re definitely making progress here.

Now that you have the backup image as a fail-safe, it’s up to you how to proceed. You’ve said that you want to deal with the shutdown issue first. @nightowlsuggests installing the backup image on a new HDD, even if it means overwriting the new Linux installation that you haven’t had much of a chance to use yet. That’s a reasonable approach, and among other things it will give you an opportunity to confirm that the backup image will, in fact, work should you need it.

To install this backup image, before swapping out any internal hard disks make sure to create a Macrium Reflect recovery CD/DVD or flash drive, if you don’t already have one. You will need it to restore any HDD images you’ve made.

NightOwl also says to make an image of the Linux installation before overwriting it with the Windows 7 image that you just made. That, too, is sensible; you can even put the Linux image on the new 1TB external HDD that you bought. Since at this point (that is, with the Linux HDD in place instead of the Vista HDD) you cannot boot into Windows 7 to use Reflect, you will need the Reflect recovery disk anyway in order to create the Linux image.

To recap:

Make (or make sure that you have) a Reflect recovery media.

Remove the Windows 7 HDD and connect the Linux HDD in its place. At this point, you will have a Vista HDD and a Linux HDD inside the PC case.

With the 1TB external HDD plugged in, boot into the Reflect recovery media.

Using a similar procedure to the one you used to create the Windows 7 image, make an image of the Linux HDD onto the 1TB external drive.

Still in the Reflect recovery media (it’s not necessary to reboot, but you can certainly do so), restore the Windows 7 image to the Linux HDD, overwriting it. At this point, you will have your old Vista HDD and the Windows 7 backup inside the PC case.

Close the Reflect application, remove the recovery media, unplug the 1TB external HDD, and reboot. The purpose is to see if the Windows 7 image restored to the new HDD will boot just as your original Windows 7 installation does.

At this point, we are in NightOwl’s paragraph that begins, “And, now restore the backup of the Linux HDD…” That’s quite a few steps taken and it’s a good time to see how things have gone before proceeding further.

Thanks for the great news, @slowpoke47. We’re definitely making progress here. Now that you have the backup image as a fail-safe, it’s up to you how to proceed. You’ve said that you want to deal with the shutdown issue first. @nightowlsuggests installing the backup image on a new HDD, even if it means overwriting the new Linux installation that you haven’t had much of a chance to use yet. That’s a reasonable approach, and among other things it will give you an opportunity to confirm that the backup image will, in fact, work should you need it. To install this backup image, before swapping out any internal hard disks make sure to create a Macrium Reflect recovery CD/DVD or flash drive, if you don’t already have one. You will need it to restore any HDD images you’ve made. NightOwl also says to make an image of the Linux installation before overwriting it with the Windows 7 image that you just made. That, too, is sensible; you can even put the Linux image on the new 1TB external HDD that you bought. Since at present you cannot boot into Windows 7 to use Reflect, you will need the Reflect recovery disk anyway in order to create the Linux image. To recap:

Make (or make sure that you have) a Reflect recovery media.

Remove the Windows 7 HDD and connect the Linux HDD in its place. At this point, you will have a Vista HDD and a Linux HDD inside the PC case.

With the 1TB external HDD plugged in, boot into the Reflect recovery media.

Using a similar procedure to the one you used to create the Windows 7 image, make an image of the Linux HDD onto the 1TB external drive.

Still in the Reflect recovery media (it’s not necessary to reboot, but you can certainly do so), restore the Windows 7 image to the Linux HDD, overwriting it. At this point, you will have your old Vista HDD and the Windows 7 backup inside the PC case.

Close the Reflect application, remove the recovery media, unplug the 1TB external HDD, and reboot. The purpose is to see if the Windows 7 image restored to the new HDD will boot just as your original Windows 7 installation does.

At this point, we are in NightOwl’s paragraph that begins, “And, now restore the backup of the Linux HDD…” That’s quite a few steps taken and it’s a good time to see how things have gone before proceeding further.

Thanks for that upvote. Unable to go further with this before tomorrow, but will proceed then. Again, many thanks.

Switch out your Win7 HDD for your Linux HDD. (Does Veeam only run under the Windows OS? If so, you may not be able to do the next step(s).)

Create a whole drive backup of the Linux HDD. (One really needs the ability to boot to some sort of *recovery media* that allows for backup and/or restore of a backup to whatever HDD is needed. Maybe you can boot to the Vista OS and use your Veeam backup software from there?)

Now, restore the backup of your Win7 HDD to the Linux HDD. Now, re-boot and can you select the Win7 OS and bring up that OS successfully? If yes, your backup and restore functions are working as they should. If not, then something is missing or not configured quite right and needs to be worked on.

And, now restore the backup of the Linux HDD to the HDD that has the restored Win7 on it. Re-boot and does Linux come up successfully. If yes, your backup and restore functions are working as they should.

And finally, replace the Linux HDD with the Un-Touched Win7 HDD and you are right back where you started from, and if everything worked as planned, you now know that your backup and restore functions are operational, and you can count on them in a disaster situation!

If any of these steps did not work, then we need to troubleshoot what’s not working.

Note, that throughout these testing procedures, your original Win7 HDD is never at *risk*–it is removed from the system for safe keeping, and we never attempt to restore to your *production* Win7 HDD–i.e. the HDD you currently use for everyday computing.

Did this make sense? Questions?

This outline is *incorrect*–I made it when I thought you were going to be using the Veeam backup software–but, now that it’s the Macrium Reflect software, I need to recommend some slight changes.

And, there are some lingering fine points that could be done to make the image creation and backup a little more organized and understandable. I’ll go over that tomorrow.

But first–are you able to boot your system from an optical disc or flash drive to any sort of recovery media–i.e. have you done that before? If not, now’s the time to say so, and get coaching on how to do that–it will become necessary if you want to be able to use your backup image file to restore your harddrive with the OS you have backed up.

I don’t use Macrium software myself–I use something else that uses a Linux boot disc to load the recovery software. But, Cybertooth appears to be using Macrium software and should be able to help you to create the Recovery Media for Macrium. Then we can cover how to boot to that Recovery Software.

But first–are you able to boot your system from an optical disc or flash drive to any sort of recovery media–i.e. have you done that before? If not, now’s the time to say so, and get coaching on how to do that–it will become necessary if you want to be able to use your backup image file to restore your harddrive with the OS you have backed up.

My only experience with this has been to download the Mint OS to a flash drive. The format was then changed to “bootable” but I was merely a spectator. Not sure exactly how, but this bootable file acquired the actual Mint OS from the Mint website, now (I think) correctly set up on the new hard drive.

But there is this warning in the Macrium user guide. Does this have any bearing on your guidance?

<p class=”title”>Important</p>

Windows cannot boot from a USB connected drive. This is a restriction imposed by Windows. If you clone your system disk to a USB connected external drive then, to boot your clone, the physical disk must be removed from the USB caddy and attached to your Motherboard SATA port.

But there is this warning in the Macrium user guide. Does this have any bearing on your guidance?

Important

Windows cannot boot from a USB connected drive. This is a restriction imposed by Windows. If you clone your system disk to a USB connected external drive then, to boot your clone, the physical disk must be removed from the USB caddy and attached to your Motherboard SATA port.

Nope–does not apply to anything we are currently trying to do. Some folks have what’s called a harddrive (HDD) *USB caddy*–it’s a device that allows one to place a HDD that one might normally place in a desktop tower into the *caddy*. With most imaging software, one can create a *clone* directly from one HDD to another–i.e. an exact copy of a source HDD–say your Win7 HDD that’s in your tower to the HDD that’s in the *caddy*. Technically, because it’s an exact copy, some folks would like to think that the HDD should be bootable while still in the *USB caddy*, just like the Win7 HDD that’s in the tower. But, a *USB caddy* through a USB controller just does not have the capacity or speed to allow Windows to boot and operate. (One can boot from a USB device–i.e. external HDD, thumb flash drive, USB optical drive, … but, it can not be a standard Windows OS that’s booted.) But, if that HDD in the caddy is removed and put in place of the HDD in the tower–it should boot just like the original HDD that it was *cloned* from. So, that’s what that warning is all about.

What you need to do, is to be able to *access* the image file that is now stored on the USB HDD and copy that image file from the USB HDD to the internal HDD in your tower to make a HDD that is exactly like the data on the date you created the backup image. When you restore that image to the HDD, everything on that HDD is wiped out and replaced with the data from your image file.

The first one would have you edit the Registry to tell Windows how long to wait for a program to respond to your shut down request (WaitToKillServiceTimeout)–if the program has not responded after a certain length of time, then Windows is supposed to *force* a shut down. In theory, there’s already a time limit that Windows is supposed to wait, and should then be *killing* any non-responding program–but, obviously it’s not able to successfully stop the non-responding program. So, simply shortening the wait time will probably have the same result–failure to close out the non-responding program.

The second one has several troubleshooting suggestions–they are actually suggestions you have already been given earlier in this thread: 1. Run the Power Options Troubleshooter, 2. Place the computer in *Clean Boot* mode (this is almost the same as my recommendation to possibly *booting to Safe Mode* mentioned previously, 3. Look at *Event Viewer* to see if there are any error codes that might help direct one to a possible problem to be corrected–also mentioned previously.

Both of these links might be of importance–we just have not got to that point yet–but, let’s finish getting your Imaging Software figured out and operational first.

With the 1TB external HDD plugged in, boot into the Reflect recovery media. Using a similar procedure to the one you used to create the Windows 7 image, make an image of the Linux HDD onto the 1TB external drive.

I do have the bootable flash drive that retrieved the Mint OS and loaded it successfully on the new HD.

1. Am I still better off to image it?

2. And, if so, do I need to worry about any conflict (or whatever) between the two images?

Still in the Reflect recovery media (it’s not necessary to reboot, but you can certainly do so), restore the Windows 7 image to the Linux HDD, overwriting it. At this point, you will have your old Vista HDD and the Windows 7 backup inside the PC case.

At this point, are both HD’s plugged in, and if so, how does the restore go to the correct disk?

No, the “recovery media” is the CD/DVD or flash drive that you would create from within Macrium Reflect, to then boot into when you’re ready to restore an image to a HDD.

I do have the bootable flash drive that retrieved the Mint OS and loaded it successfully on the new HD.

1. Am I still better off to image it?

2. And, if so, do I need to worry about any conflict (or whatever) between the two images?

If the Mint that you loaded onto the new HDD is identical to the one that’s on the flash drive (meaning: if you didn’t make any changes to the Mint that’s on the HDD, say by installing additional software or updates, or getting work done on it), then I would say that you do NOT need to image that Mint HDD and you can skip that step.

Regarding possible “conflicts between the two images,” refer back to the paragraph just above. If the image that’s on the new HDD is in any way different from the one that’s on the flash drive, then you MAY want to image the Mint that’s on the HDD. But if you haven’t made any changes, or if the changes are minimal or inconsequential, then you could legitimately decide that keeping those few changes isn’t worth the extra effort of making that image. Then when you’re ready to install Mint for good, you can simply reload what you have on the flash drive onto the new HDD, gleefully overwriting anything that’s on it. 🙂

The main thing at this stage is to make sure that you can make a Windows 7 image that will boot the same way as your current Windows 7 HDD does when Vista is in place. Then in theory we can work either on the image or on the original Windows 7 installation, to try to fix your shutdown problem as well as the “no bootup without Vista” issue.

EDIT: I overlooked your third question:

At this point, are both HD’s plugged in, and if so, how does the restore go to the correct disk?

Yes, as Step 5 specifies, inside the PC case you will have the Vista HDD and the new internal HDD. You will restore the Windows 7 image that you made earlier onto the new HDD, overwriting the Linux Mint installation.

The way to restore the image goes roughly as follows: Boot into the Macrium Reflect recovery disk that you have made or will need to make. Then, in the left panel, select the “Restore” tab. The external 1TB HDD should still be plugged in, so Reflect will show you a list of available images to be restored from the external HDD. Make sure to select the correct desired image from the right disk, and also to tell Reflect the HDD where you wish to restore the image to.

Reflect may show you multiple partitions on the Windows 7 image. Make sure that they are checked, then start the restoration process.

This outline is *incorrect*–I made it when I thought you were going to be using the Veeam backup software–but, now that it’s the Macrium Reflect software, I need to recommend some slight changes.

I’m not going to make another outline. My impression is that you get *overwhelmed* by too much information. So, I’m going to introduce one step only at a time. We can discuss it and perform whatever intermediate steps are needed. But, until the step is completed, we should not worry about any future steps until we get there.

The first thing you need to do after installing Macrium Reflect is create Rescue Media

Why?:

If you lose your Windows operating system, you can start your PC using Macrium Reflect rescue media on CD, DVD, or USB stick. This makes creating rescue media the first thing you need to do with Macrium Reflect. It contains a bootable, lightweight version of Windows and a full version of Macrium Reflect.

Why does this rescue media need to be tested?:

The default drivers placed on the bootable rescue media may not be the needed drivers for your computer system, the drivers may not be compatible, or other issues–you need to know that ahead of time so the problems can be corrected, and you can access your image file(s) on your external USB HDD, and demonstrate that you can restore those images to your HDD.

My only experience with this has been to download the Mint OS to a flash drive. The format was then changed to “bootable” but I was merely a spectator. Not sure exactly how, but this bootable file acquired the actual Mint OS from the Mint website, now (I think) correctly set up on the new hard drive.

It’s not really important *how* it became bootable, or how the Mint OS was loaded onto that flash drive–what’s missing from the above statement is *Yes, I used that flash drive to boot my computer, by-passing the Windows boot sequence that shows the OS selection for Vista and Win7 OSs, and proceeded to install Mint onto the blank HDD.*

Basically, are you comfortable with the ability to boot either a bootable flash drive or bootable CD/DVD, by-passing the Windows bootup sequence? When you create the Macrium Rescue Media, you will have to select to either create a flash drive or CD/DVD as your bootable media.

Here’s the Macrium v7.2 User Guide–all 550 pages worth. Yikes–that’s a lot to memorize! They seemed to have forgotten to mention how to get to their *Create Rescue Media* section, but it looks like you select from the top Menu list the *Other Tasks* item, and then I think it will list *Create Rescue Media … * in the drop down menu.

In the User Guide–you will find a *boat load* of possible options to choose from to *customize* the bootable rescue media. My advise–put on some blinders and ignore all of those, at least for now. Just accept the *default* settings that the Macrium software suggests. We will then test out the results and only worry about all those optional choices if for some reason we need to!

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(Just for the record, you need to go back to Cybertooth’s original Reply, and quote it from there, otherwise, as you can see, the forum software is showing that the statement is coming from you, and not Cybertooth–which is technically true–you’re quoting something from *your* Reply and not Cybertooth’s.)

Nope. Yesterday’s system image is your *Image File* of the partitions on your HDDs. Reflect Recovery Media is the bootable flash drive or bootable CD/DVD that allows you to boot to your computer with a Windows *Lite* version that will also have the Macrium Reflect software so you can access your *Image File*, and you will not actually be booted to any other OS, such as your Win7, Win Vista, or Linux OS.

I do have the bootable flash drive that retrieved the Mint OS and loaded it successfully on the new HD.

1. Am I still better off to image it?

2. And, if so, do I need to worry about any conflict (or whatever) between the two images?

I would recommend that you not try to follow either my outline of steps (multiple steps in one outline), or Cypertooth’s–you’re not quite ready yet. Let’s do one step at a time, I will explain the next step and try to explain why as we go. And I will be asking you questions as we go to make sure you understand, and what I’m recommending makes sense to you.

That would suggest that the Macrium Reflect recovery disk has increased in size considerably between the time that “my” version of Reflect was released and the time that yours came out. Wouldn’t surprise me.

Be that as it may, try putting the Reflect recovery medium on a blank DVD instead of a CD.

Could you take a screenshoot of the setup page showing the settings being used to create the Rescue Media? Sounds like something isn’t going as expected ….

Alternatively, you can always re-create the Linux Mint installation flash drive if you ever need it–if we create an image backup of the Linux HDD, then you probably will never need the installation files again. But, you could use that flash drive as apposed to using an optical disc, and avoid a trip and the expense of purchasing other optical discs.

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That would suggest that the Macrium Reflect recovery disk has increased in size considerably between the time that “my” version of Reflect was released and the time that yours came out. Wouldn’t surprise me.

Thanks all. 32GB flash drive installed and ready. Macrium has found it. The screen below generates with the flash in place and selected, and clicking on the blue Windows icon in the upper left pane. OK so far? Anything else before clicking Next at bottom?

Linux Mint Mate 19.2

Attachments:

That would suggest that the Macrium Reflect recovery disk has increased in size considerably between the time that “my” version of Reflect was released and the time that yours came out. Wouldn’t surprise me.

Can you check, how much data is on your Rescue Media disc.

Can’t do that until this operation finishes. It is a large file. I think I’m now good to go, as long as I head in the right direction.

Here’s the Macrium v7.2 User Guide–all 550 pages worth. Yikes–that’s a lot to memorize! They seemed to have forgotten to mention how to get to their *Create Rescue Media* section, but it looks like you select from the top Menu list the *Other Tasks* item, and then I think it will list *Create Rescue Media … * in the drop down menu.

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Started over. Blank CD in PC. My Macrium page layout is a little different, but you can see by the s/shot that there is an option “Create bootable rescue media” which generates the pop-up in the s/shot. Haven’t done anything else, but I see in the automatically highlighted option is the text “add/change the boot menu” and near the top “Click build to update.” Should I do that?

Linux Mint Mate 19.2

Attachments:

@Slowpoke47, just a quick NOTE: you are aware that you are using the trial ‘Home’ version of macrium Reflect. (HINT, HINT, NUDGE, NUDGE)
The ‘Free’ version is adequate for your purpose unless you wish to pay for the privilege of using it. 😉

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3:56 PM, have not done anything further since that s/shot. Macrium waiting for further input.

Hit the *Cancel* button at the bottom of that screen. Go to the *Create Rescue Media*. Select your optical drive with a CD inserted. Press *Build* Don’t press any other buttons or options except what’s needed to complete the burning of the CD!

3:56 PM, have not done anything further since that s/shot. Macrium waiting for further input.

Hit the *Cancel* button at the bottom of that screen. Go to the *Create Rescue Media*. Select your optical drive with a CD inserted. Press *Build* Don’t press any other buttons or options except what’s needed to complete the burning of the CD!

Did exactly this. After running several minutes, got pop-up, CD invalid. This is a new, out-of-the-box disc. I do have a couple of 32GB flashd drives, just ran out to get them earlier. Should I try again with one of those?

I think we all have had a bad CD now and again. No way to know if that’s a 1-off error or if other discs in the box would give the same problem. Have you used other CDs from this box successfully. I know I’ve had a batch of CDs in the same box and most of them refused to work, at least on my optical drive. Switch brands, and everything was working as it should again. So, don’t know ….

I do have a couple of 32GB flashd drives, … Should I try again with one of those?

Your call–probably will work just fine. You only need less than 1 GB, so lots of wasted space. But, you could try different optical discs in the future (or more right now that are in the box) to see if the problem persists. Once you have a bootable disc, you can re-use the flash drive for what ever purpose. I know some folks who swear they will only use flash drives and not CDs or DVDs–and that’s fine. You could purchase a 2 GB flash drive and use that to create your Rescue Media in the future, and again re-use the 32 GB flash drive for what ever you wish.

You could try one more optical disc. If it fails, then switch to the flash drive–at least for testing for now. Then switch to something else in the future.

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Perhaps taking the PC to a repair shop is the best way now that you have tried many different ways without a desirable result? Something like Best Buy “Geek Squad.” Maybe others could recommend a better place; if someone does, I would be interested to know about it as well.

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Chain repair places tend to be just terrible. Local places can be too, but there’s the chance they are businesses started by a hobbyist or otherwise capable person who has an interest and not just some chain place trying to find warm bodies to “train.” You may run into one that has someone competent, but you won’t know beforehand, nor can you guarantee that the good guy would be the one to work on it.

Not only that, but Best Buy has been caught snooping through people’s hard drives to find something incriminating to hand over to the FBI. That should be ruled unconstitutional under the Fourth Amendment, but it hasn’t been thus far.

Unfortunately, that means you will have to do some research locally. It’s hard to even know if customer reviews on any given site are accurate, as they’re often fake, either good or bad. The Better Business Bureau may have some useful info, but even then, complaints can be faked.

I concur with Microfix’s advice here. The goal is to create a bootable drive (or disc) to write a bootloader to the Windows 7 hard drive. No need to pull the eject handle yet… this is all part of the process of getting the bootable written.

As for paying for it… that’s a personal choice. As long as you’re using the free one within Macrium’s terms, it’s up to you. It is good to support companies who make stuff you like.

I’d buy any (consumer-oriented, reasonably priced) Linux software that offered live backup functionality like all the Windows ones do (Linux has long had the ability to do shadow copies like Windows), but so far, none exist that I know of. I thought initially that Terabyte NovaBackup had that, but I was wrong… it just creates a bootable disc or USB too.

Actually, Acronis has a backup program for Linux… but it costs $500 per year, because only businesses who consider that kind of thing to be part of the cost of running business run Linux. Of course!

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Try a different CD or two from the same package, sometimes they just come out bad (it’s happened to me). If you try several different CDs at random and none of them works, then try one of the 32GB flash drives.

ok, will do.

Linux Mint Mate 19.2

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I suspect you were looking at the size of the Windows 7 backup image that you had created. You haven’t yet created the rescue media disc. That one will come out to much less than 1GB. Pop a new CD back in, relaunch Reflect, and start the process of creating rescue media again.

That wpost was in answer to an earlier question by NightOwl. Just about to try again with a different new CD.

Once I had problems with the disk drive reading or burning DVDs; I was advised to use +RW type, and that took care of my problem. But I still think that taking the PC to a place where people with the necessary expertise can look at it directly might be something to be considered as well.

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What disc are you looking at, and how have you looked at it. Maybe a screenshot of the method you’re using to see the size of the file on disc. Even if this is the previous disc that you attempted to put an image file on, there is no CD that will hold 69.5 GB of data–max is about 700MB to 750MB. Even a DVD is only about 4.3 GB or so at most.

Didn’t mean to confuse the issue. That file is on the ext. drive that ran yesterday- that’s the file size of the system image, which is what I thought you were asking in that post. In any case, the second attempt at the recovery disc went well.

@ Slowpoke47 Whew! Boy, that took a whole lot more *discussion* than I anticipated! Wait ’til I tell you the steps for *Step 2*! 🙂

Can’t begin to express my appreciation for everyone’s patience. After this I may go and look for a job digging ditches, or suchlike. OK, I’m ready to continue. Hope to make you all proud, or at least, atone for past gaffes!

Linux Mint Mate 19.2

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@slowpoke47, just a quick NOTE: you are aware that you are using the trial ‘Home’ version of macrium Reflect. (HINT, HINT, NUDGE, NUDGE) The ‘Free’ version is adequate for your purpose unless you wish to pay for the privilege of using it. 🙂

I’m not one who expects value for nothing, computer-wise or otherwise. Once I get out of this mess, if it looks like I can benefit from (and understand) the Macrium app I’ll pony up.

I pay if an available free version is any good and of ‘value’ to me as I have done with many freemium utilities. I don’t use macrium reflect and don’t need it which is why I suggested the free version to start with, it’s your pony and PC 🙂

Win7 Pro x86/x64 | Win8.1 Pro x64 | Linux Hybrids x86/x64 |

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FWIW- While burning the rescue CD I noticed in a couple of spots on the Macrium screen the checkable option to create/repair boot function. Just curious if there may be something to pursue there. If yes, it still may not work with the Vista drive in place, as Vista, as the original OS, has subsumed the W7 boot function.

If the checkable option to create/repair boot function is in reference to your Windows 7 HDD, then yes, it may be worth a shot trying that. But first let’s finish these other steps, to make sure that youir Windows 7 backup works acceptably.

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While burning the rescue CD I noticed in a couple of spots on the Macrium screen the checkable option to create/repair boot function. Just curious if there may be something to pursue there.

You may not have noticed, but in the previous thread you started regarding not being able to boot you Win7 system after installing the Linux Mint OS, there were several mentions of perhaps Macrium might be able to fix a non-boot situation.

I have looked that up and from what I read, it sounded like Macrium could *repair* a non-boot situation, but it did not mention the ability to *move* the boot files from one OS to another (which is what you need done), and it did not mention being able to move boot files from one HDD to another HDD. Just because it does not specifically say it can (or can’t) do those things, doesn’t mean it can’t do those things–but it leaves it open to doubt. If other techniques don’t work, I was keeping the Macrium option on the back burner for a possible attempt.

My only experience with this has been to download the Mint OS to a flash drive. The format was then changed to “bootable” but I was merely a spectator. Not sure exactly how, but this bootable file acquired the actual Mint OS from the Mint website, now (I think) correctly set up on the new hard drive.

It’s not really important *how* it became bootable, or how the Mint OS was loaded onto that flash drive–what’s missing from the above statement is *Yes, I used that flash drive to boot my computer, by-passing the Windows boot sequence that shows the OS selection for Vista and Win7 OSs, and proceeded to install Mint onto the blank HDD.*

Basically, are you comfortable with the ability to boot either a bootable flash drive or bootable CD/DVD, by-passing the Windows bootup sequence?

Just for the record, I realize you had removed both the Win7 HDD and the Vista HDD, so there was no longer any Windows based bootable media on the system when you used that Linux flash drive to install Linux to the new HDD. You then added back the Win7 HDD and discovered that you could not boot that Windows OS any longer. (Yes, we’re going to fix that–after we know you can recover from a *disaster*.)

Computers can load and run *lots* of different OSs. There’s DOS (Disk Operating System) could run programs from a floppy disk), there’s Linux (one can run Linux from a bootable CD–does not have to be *installed* on the HDD), there’s WinPE (Windows Preinstallation Environment), there’s WinRE (Windows Recovery Environment), there’s Macrium Rescue Media (well, to be honest, the Macrium Rescue Media is based on the WinPE or WinRE–so the Rescue Media is not a separate OS that a computer system can run. There are countless others as well.

But, a fairly common theme to many *Rescue Media* is that you can boot to that media before Windows has a chance to boot, you can load various programs for testing and evaluating problems, and often times you can make changes to the data on the HDD or the OS system files to correct a problem, etc.

Have you booted any forms of *Rescue Media* in the past, that boots prior to Windows booting, booting either from a flash drive or an optical disc?

Do you know how to boot from a flash drive or optical media as indicated above?

You answers will determine what we do next in *Step 2*.

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It’s not really important *how* it became bootable, or how the Mint OS was loaded onto that flash drive–what’s missing from the above statement is *Yes, I used that flash drive to boot my computer, by-passing the Windows boot sequence that shows the OS selection for Vista and Win7 OSs, and proceeded to install Mint onto the blank HDD.*

Just so I don’t use the wrong terminology- here’s what I did (mostly as you recount)- Once I had the flash drive, no Windows OS’s were involved. The new blank HD was installed and connected and the W7 HD was in place but unplugged. I plugged in the flash drive and started the PC, which had only one option- that flash drive. The PC started and had to boot from that flash drive, nothing else was available.

So if that is booting from a flash drive, the answer is, yes, I did that.

I pay if an available free version is any good and of ‘value’ to me as I have done with many freemium utilities. I don’t use macrium reflect and don’t need it which is why I suggested the free version to start with, it’s your pony and PC 🙂

I’m with you. The help I’ve received here has been invaluable- as you can see, I am subscribed.

If the checkable option to create/repair boot function is in reference to your Windows 7 HDD, then yes, it may be worth a shot trying that. But first let’s finish these other steps, to make sure that youir Windows 7 backup works acceptably.

At this point I want to acknowledge the generous amount of time that everyone who has posted has spent on my behalf. I believe that the expertise here is superior to anything I might find in a repair shop, and you never know how good any particular tech might be. In addition, there are files on this PC that we do not wish to risk in the hands of a third party- financial records and such.

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So if that is booting from a flash drive, the answer is, yes, I did that.

But, my question had a two part sentence–part one was booting from a bootable flash drive (or a bootable CD/DVD), and part two was *did you by-pass the Windows boot sequence*.

Having all drives where Windows is installed that are removed and/or disconnected does not count as *by-passing* the Windows boot sequence.

In order for Rescue Media to be available to work with Windows installations for repair, image creation, or image restores, the Windows HDDs have to be installed, connected, and running.

So, the correct answer is *No, apparently you have not used Rescue Media to boot your system, while by-passing the Windows boot sequence*.

A couple more questions:

1. I have seen you make reference to the BIOS. Are you referring to the System BIOS, and are you talking about being able to enter the System BIOS Setup program that you can access during initial boot by hitting a certain key or key combination?

If *Yes*–are you familiar with the Boot Priority Sequence (Name may vary from BIOS to BIOS, but it lists the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, etc. Boot Device in whatever order you have selected. Do you know what the priority listing for your devices is/are? It might be 1st=optical drive, 2nd=Vista HDD, 3rd=USB Flash Drive, 4th=Win7 HDD …..

If you don’t know the order–reboot and enter the BIOS and copy down that priority list. Report back here with that listing.

2. During bootup, there usually is a *Boot Menu* that one can access–this is not the BIOS Priority List. Instead this is the listing of all bootable devices that are or may be available during boot. My system uses F8 to bring that menu up. I can then select (and this over-rides the BIOS Boot Priority List) which ever HDD I want to choose, which optical drive, which USB drive (flash and/or external HDD), floppy drive if installed, USB optical drive, USB Floppy Drive,–so a bunch of choices. Are you familiar with this boot menu?

Usually the special key to bring up the *Boot Menu* is shown for 5-10 seconds during initial boot (on my system it’s along the bottom of the screen), and you have to push that key soon after that key is shown in order to get it to respond. I sometimes repeatedly press the key. It usually takes a brief period before it finally responds.

Record that Key, and report back here with that information once you have it.

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So, the correct answer is *No, apparently you have not used Rescue Media to boot your system, while by-passing the Windows boot sequence*.

That is correct, in the Linux sequence I described, as stated, all went on without input from me to get started.

Yes, I am aware of the BIOS vis-a-vis boot order, etc. and yes, F12 is the correct key to enter. F2 also offers help at bootup, don’t at the moment remember which details are which, but will review. Have to be away from the computer for 2-3 hours but will post details then. Thank you!

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Current status- Vista and Windows 7 hard disks still installed. PC boots to W7 as expected. Shutdown occasionally normal, other times slow to very slow to manual shutdown needed via power button. Hangs up at “shutting down” and cites Task Host Manager.

Normal bootup screen

F12 Boot Order

From F12 <enter setup>

Boot Device Configuration

SATA 3200… is Windows 7, SATA 6400… is Vista, shown as highlighted. Tried changing the highlight to W7, either way, W7 is the default as shown in first photo. Unknown if my selecting W7 “sticks” since I didn’t know if too many bootup-shutdown cycles would be harmful- so I didn’t reboot to check.

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1. The first section is for the harddrives (HDDs) only. I have 3 HDDs and one Flash Drive hooked up. These four devices are listed here and I can make them be in any order for 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th.

2. The second section is for selecting 3 types of devices for booting, and which will be 1st, and then 2nd, and finally 3rd

So, I have the HDD that has my boot loader (allows me to select which OS I want to boot), set as the first HDD to boot from, and I have that HDD’s partition set as *Active* which is what the System is looking for in order to read the boot loader information. If those two things happen together (first HDD the the BIOS looks at, and set *Active*), the boot process proceeds, and the BIOS does not look at the next HDD in line for boot information (which it may have–but it would only be acted upon if I changed the HDD boot order so the now second HDD is changed to being 1st, or if the now 1st HDD did not have boot information and/or the first HDD was not set as *Active*–then the BIOS would move onto the 2nd HDD to see it is set *Active* and has boot information).

And, in the second section, I have my Optical Drive set as the first device to look for boot information, and then the second boot device is the HDD (and again, which HDD was previously set in the First Section).

So, that set up will look for a bootable optical disc to boot from 1st. If there is no disc, or there is a disc that is not bootable media, then the BIOS moves on and looks for a bootable HDD next.

If there is a bootable disc in the optical drive, then one of two things might happen:

1. Some bootable optical discs will trigger a message saying something to the effect, “Hit any Key if you want to boot from the optical drive.” If you do not hit a Key, then after a brief timeout, the BIOS will move onto the next boot device, usually the HDD. (I guess this behavior is in case you forgot to remove a bootable disc from the optical drive that you used on the last boot, and you don’t want to restart the system, so you can just wait for the timeout to be over and the system will boot from the HDD (and you can remove the bootable optical disc and put it away after the system has booted).

2. Or, many bootable optical discs will simply go ahead and boot immediately. If you did not really want to boot from the optical disc, you first have to close down whatever it is that the optical disc booted, remove the disc, and re-boot the system to get it to bypass the optical drive and move onto the HDD.

Alternatively, rather than using the BIOS boot priority to control what device to boot from, you can hit the F12 key right after you hear the initial bootup beep, you will get the Boot Menu, and you can manually select what device you want the system to attempt to boot from.

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SATA 3200… is Windows 7, SATA 6400… is Vista, shown as highlighted. Tried changing the highlight to W7, either way, W7 is the default as shown in first photo. Unknown if my selecting W7 “sticks” since I didn’t know if too many bootup-shutdown cycles would be harmful- so I didn’t reboot to check.

Yes, the SATA 6400 is at the top and highlighted in your 2nd photo, *Please Select Boot Device*–that is not an actual *Boot Order*, just a list of boot device options that are listed–I don’t know how the order shown is created. What’s highlighted in that 2nd photo is unrelated to the *Windows Boot Manager*, the 1st photo.

No, it won’t *stick*. Bringing up the *Please Select Boot Device* boot menu just gives you a one time option to choose a boot device. Next time you bring it up, it will look exactly the same as it does now in that photo, unless possibly if you make system changes–then new information may show up–for instance if you take out your Vista HDD, and put the new HDD in that has the Linux Mint installed on it.

I don’t think you have to worry too much about bootup–shut down cycles. But, you can just use *Restart*, and that will not cause a *shut down* cycle.

Hmmm, I’ve not asked before, but just out of curiosity for now, does a *Restart* cause the same delay that the *Shut Down* command does?

Attachments:

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Looks like it’s a BIOS-based system, not UEFI. I wasn’t sure from the start, so I gave both sets of directions, but that’s not UEFI there. Too many chefs spoil the broth for sure, so all I will offer is that the thing about the Macrium Reflect USB still stands, and so does the thing about entering ‘sudo update-grub’ once you get the bootloader written.

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and since it was originally co-opted by Vista- with Vista still in the case, won’t that happen again? Remember, I can’t boot 7 without Vista connected.

So, just for the record–if you remove the Win7 HDD (or disconnect the communication port wire, or unplug the power cord), you should still be able to boot the Vista OS!

Vista actually did not *co-opt* the Win7 bootloader–it was Win7 that co-opted the Vista partition with the Vista bootloader to place its (Win7’s) boot files on that Vista partition!

We have left out the whole discussion as to how Win7 was added to this system so it was able to create a Microsoft boot loader in the first place. That usually happens when one is running the *installation* media to create the partition(s) and place the OS files onto a HDD. Something happened that we don’t really know about–but let’s leave sleeping dogs lie–at least for now.

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NightOwl’s got you covered. He’s suggesting everything I would have, so I’d say you’re in good hands!

As he said, it was Windows 7 that co-opted the pre-existing Vista bootloader (and only the bootloader), not the other way round. The USB rescue drive has its own bootloader, so you can select it as the boot device from the boot options menu regardless of what other drives are installed on the system.

If you were to disconnect the Win 7 drive but leave the Vista one installed, it should still give you the boot menu asking which version of Windows you want, but the 7 option will give an error if you try it, since 7 isn’t there to be loaded. There’s not really anything to be learned by trying that, as NightOwl has already said, since we already know what the story is. There’s a Windows bootloader on the Vista drive that can load Vista from that same drive or 7 from the 7 drive. If you want to take the Vista drive out, there’s no longer a Windows bootloader on the PC, so you’re going to need another Windows bootloader, and that’s what the EasyBCD or Macrium Reflect disc/USB drives will do for you.

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Okay, we are about ready to proceed to testing booting to Recovery Media.

But, before that, I would like to recommend a slight bit of *house keeping*.

I would like you to consider naming, or if already named, re-naming your various partitions so they have *descriptive* names that are *memorable*. So for instance, here’s a screen shoot you posted previously in this thread:

If you bring that listing back up in Win7, you should be able to *right-click* with the mouse, and select at the bottom of the option menu that pops up *Properties*. You then should get a window that looks mostly like this:

The top box with the arrow pointing at it can be used to name your partition with whatever you wish. I named mine as *C-Win7_SSD*–that’s my Win7 partition that’s on my SSD HDD and has the drive letter C assigned to it.

So, the partition that’s identified as *Local Disk (C:)* on your screenshot is actually un-named–*Local Disk* is just a generic place holder name. But, I’m pretty sure that’s your Win7 partition that has the operating system files in it. Feel free to correct me if I’m wrong. But, in that screenshot, from your *Computer* (aka *My Computer* and *This Computer*–depending on the OS and the desktop theme that is being used) is lumping all the partitions together that are being *seen*, and not keeping things separated and lumped together by which harddrive (HDD) those partitions are on. A confusion factor! When doing imaging creation and restores, it’s important to keep track of which HDD is which and where the various partitions came from and are located.

This screenshot from your Macrium Image Formation screen keeps things a little bit better organized so you can tell where everything is and is coming from:

A better way to name partitions is to list the nominal drive letter that is seen when booted to that particular OS–so in this case *C*, and to identify what the partition is for or related to–again in this case *Win7*. So, *C-Win7*. If you were administering multiple computers on a network, then also including a computer identifier would be good as well, but you are not doing things quite that fancy–at least not yet 😉 !

The *OS (D:)* looks like it’s probably the Vista partition that holds the OS system files on it. So, I would name it, instead of simply *OS*, so now *D-Vista*.

And the *Recovery (E:)*–I would use *E-Recovery*. Now, when you use the *Computer* to view your HDDs, you will still get the drive letter in the parentheses after the partition name you have given it–but the name just emphases that for you.

Some partitions do not have a drive letter assigned–for instance your *DellUtility*. You can just leave that as is.

I think there might be at least one *hidden* partition. But, we’ll try to identify that possibility next.

But, in that screenshot, from your *Computer* (aka *My Computer* and *This Computer*–depending on the OS and the desktop theme that is being used) is lumping all the partitions together that are being *seen*, and not keeping things separated and lumped together by which harddrive (HDD) those partitions are on. A confusion factor!

You will have to help me out here: I’m going to add up those partition sizes in that screenshot that you say is the Win7 harddrive–289 + 581 + 14.6 = 893.6 GB. Do you agree with the GB numbers from that screen shot? Is that the size of your Win7 HDD?

A Google search says the WD6400 is a 640 GB HDD. (FYI–Windows uses a different way to calculate data sizes for HDDs–it is always less than what the manufacturers list. These numbers appear to be accurate.)

Google search for WD3200 says it’s a 320 GB HDD.

I’ll post another trouble shooting effort to clarify this matter in a moment.

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You will have to help me out here: I’m going to add up those partition sizes in that screenshot that you say is the Win7 harddrive–289 + 581 + 14.6 = 893.6 GB. Do you agree with the GB numbers from that screen shot? Is that the size of your Win7 HDD?

Yes, just looked again (“289″= typo, actually 298, but total correct).

If I ask you to load, or run *Disk Management*, do you know what I mean?

Disk Management is a Windows program that will show the HDDs connected to your computer. It will list each HDD separately (Disk 0, Disk 1, Disk 2, etc), and show all the partitions that are on a particular HDD. It will also show any USB connected Card Reader(s) for memory cards, any connected Flash/thumb drive(s), and the Optical drive(s) connected and available.

You might be able to go to your Start menu, and in the Search Box, type Disk Management, and it will probably bring up that program. Expand the size so you can clearly see the different drives and the partitions on those drives. Post a screenshot.

Alternatively, if you right mouse button click on *Computer*, or *My Computer*, or *This Computer*–the popup menu should have an entry that says *Manage*–click that and you should get another menu window. Find and click on *Disk Management*. Shortly you should have that program. Do as mentioned above and post a screenshot.

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and since it was originally co-opted by Vista- with Vista still in the case, won’t that happen again?

Sorry, forgot to answer that question–No, neither Win Vista, nor Win7 will do anything to the boot loader on their own at this point. You would have to manually make any changes at this time. The possible *automated* creation of the boot loader and placement of the boot files on the Vista HDD occurred at some point when you first installed and started using the Win7 HDD. That window (pun intended) of opportunity has come and gone!

NightOwl- are you thinking that the two OS’s are in some way “merged”?

Nope. I do not think that the two OSs are merged. Their shared bootloader is *merged*, and we know for sure that the Win7 OS HDD is dependent on having the Vista HDD installed if you want to boot to Win7–which must mean that the bootloader is on the Vista HDD, and not the Win7 HDD.

I will try booting up Vista without W7 connected tomorrow and post back.

As stated above, probably not necessary. You could if you wanted to confirm beyond a 0.01% chance that I’m wrong in my estimation of the possibility. I always use the dislaimer that one should *never say never*–because there’s *always* a chance!

I’m going to add up those partition sizes in that screenshot that you say is the Win7 harddrive–289 + 581 + 14.6 = 893.6 GB. Do you agree with the GB numbers from that screen shot? Is that the size of your Win7 HDD?

You corrected me on a typo for the *289* listing, saying it was supposed to be *298* (which I acknowledge–I typed the wrong number), but the total number of GB was correct at 893.6 GB.

Neither of your HDDs is that large–they are 640 and 320–not 893.6. So, that total number of GB can not be all *W7*.

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The letter names are for some reason, not conventional, e. g. calling the OS by “D.” This came up earlier, and I looked at the analogous screen in Vista and the GB figures were all different, not reversed as you might expect if C and D were the two OS’s.

We need you to boot to Vista. (You could kill two birds with one boot if you wanted to disconnect your Win7 HDD to see if the Vista OS will boot without the Win7 HDD attached.)

Use the same technique you used to create the screenshot that you stated was “everything you see there is W7.” I’m pretty sure you used the click of *My Computer* to get that listing. Post the screen shot here once you have it.

Need to see how Vista’s drive letters, and partition sizes vary compared to that Win7 screenshot.

Windows is notorious for not having consistent drive letter layouts. That’s why I was suggesting that you name your partitions with *memorable* and *descriptive* names so you can not confuse them when you perform image creations and restorations.

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@nightowl, in the screenshot, that “Local Disk C:” must be the Vista HDD, and “OS D:” must the Windows 7 HDD. Gotta be.

Why? What’s your reasoning? What evidence are you using to draw that conclusion?

I transposed the labels when writing my post. Sorry about that.

What I was really focused on when preparing that post was the screenshot that @slowpoke47 offered, which could be interpreted as indicating that his drives C, D, and E were partitions from a single larger disk, as you inquired of him:

You will have to help me out here: I’m going to add up those partition sizes in that screenshot that you say is the Win7 harddrive–289 + 581 + 14.6 = 893.6 GB. Do you agree with the GB numbers from that screen shot? Is that the size of your Win7 HDD?

The point was that it was already known they were separate HDDs. Hence the “gotta be”: despite Slowpoke47’s possible impression that Vista and 7 were somehow “merged,” as you put it, based on everything else we’ve seen they had to be different physical disks. And the purpose of writing the post was to reinforce this idea and help to dispel that misimpression.

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Okay, that makes sense! When I first read your response, I thought you were saying it the other way around (see–it was easy for me to transpose the two labels as well). Then I re-read it and said to myself–that doesn’t sound right. But, it was what it was, and I had to ask ….

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Again, to all, thank you for your efforts on my behalf. I will not have time this morning to read the posts since last night when I had to exit, but I did have a few minutes to prepare just this one post before heading out the door, may be helpful.

This is Vista with the W7 drive connected.

With the data plug of W7 disconnected, as you can see, all is the same. The smaller plug (power?) was still connected in this s/shot. Could be I should have done that. If my understanding is correct, the W7 disk would still have been spinning, but there would be no data available from 7. I did not shut down when I unplugged the data cable, if that makes any difference.

The three bar graphs are identical to those currently showing in W7.

An interesting point is that the Vista and 7 graphs have not always matched, as they do now. Before I began playing musical chairs with the hard disks, the numbers differed between the two systems. Could these two OS’s have “merged”?

In the process of “moving out” of Vista, I transferred the few remaining Vista data files to 7. I believe that those blue bar graphs did not match across the OS’s before that, but not sure, as I had no reason to check. Unknown if this was a factor.

And today, for the first time, Vista had the shutdown hangup, had to use the power button.

I expect to be back in about 3-4 hours, will check in then.

Linux Mint Mate 19.2

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If the larger of the two connectors going from the PC into the Windows 7 HDD (a SATA disk, right?) was unplugged, then it was the power cable. That’s interesting, Windows Explorer was still listing the Windows 7 HDD even though it wasn’t powered?

I’m not sure what you meant when you wrote that

The three bar graphs are identical to those currently showing in W7.

Do you mean that Windows Explorer gives you an identical list of drives (each with the same drive letters, sizes, and usage) when you boot into Windows 7 as when you boot into Vista?

Regarding the hangup when shutting down from Vista, my inclination would be to ignore it unless it keeps happening as with your Windows 7. Were you shutting down after having disconnected the Windows 7 HDD? If so, then maybe for some reason the OS was expecting to see that now-nonexistent drive during the shutdown process.

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I did not shut down when I unplugged the data cable, if that makes any difference.

I would have to say not shutting down before unplugging a HDD is a very bad idea and choice! You have no idea what the state of the HDD is in as far as the Windows OS accessing data and writing data to a HDD. You can see the HDD activity light flashing constantly when the OS is up and running–but you don’t know which of any attached HDDs is being access at any given time.

Very risky! Consequences are Unknown!

You have expressed concern about using the Power Button to shut down a frozen Windows shut down process. I think disconnecting a HDD while the system is actively running is a fair riskier event, unless you have *Hot Swapping* enable, and you follow certain procedures–similar to using USB devices such as Flash/Thumb drives! There is a proper way to disconnect a Flash/Thumb drive to make sure Windows has finished writing anything to that device.

Disconnecting a SATA HDD while a system is running is called *Hot Swapping*. It’s a feature that has been available for awhile on modern systems. But the system has to be set up appropriately, and certain settings are necessary, and certain procedures need to be followed.

I have no idea if you are properly set up for *Hot Swapping*. And, I don’t know if you have followed the *proper procedures*. Here’s a list of links where *Hot Swapping* is discussed. You can decide if you want to pursue the information. It is *off topic* to this thread, and you should start a new thread in an appropriate forum if you want to pursue it further:

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An interesting point is that the Vista and 7 graphs have not always matched, as they do now. Before I began playing musical chairs with the hard disks, the numbers differed between the two systems. Could these two OS’s have “merged”?

…is that they have not merged. The reason you get the same drive listings but with different drive letters is that whichever Windows you’ve booted into, generally likes to consider the drive that it resides on as the C: drive. (This isn’t always the case.)

I have another request for you. That Disk Management screenshot, did you take it after booting into Windows 7 or into Vista? Now please boot into the other OS, go into Disk Management, capture a screenshot of the disks, and post it here for comparison to your first screenshot.

@slowpoke47, thanks for the two new shots. If the larger of the two connectors going from the PC into the Windows 7 HDD (a SATA disk, right?) was unplugged, then it was the power cable. That’s interesting, Windows Explorer was still listing the Windows 7 HDD even though it wasn’t powered? I’m not sure what you meant when you wrote that

The three bar graphs are identical to those currently showing in W7.

Do you mean that Windows Explorer gives you an identical list of drives (each with the same drive letters, sizes, and usage) when you boot into Windows 7 as when you boot into Vista? Regarding the hangup when shutting down from Vista, my inclination would be to ignore it unless it keeps happening as with your Windows 7. Were you shutting down after having disconnected the Windows 7 HDD? If so, then maybe for some reason the OS was expecting to see that now-nonexistent drive during the shutdown process.

Again, perhaps my ignorance shows. The wider, flat plug was removed. The “squarish” one remained connected.

Linux Mint Mate 19.2

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Couple of comments- in switching between the two OS’s, I’m seeing Vista boot to the desktop and then to Firefox almost “instantly” while W7 takes maybe ½ minute (not timed) to show the desktop and maybe ¾- 1 full minute to open FF. Is this of interest?

Also- is there undue exposure when going online in Vista as an obsolete, un-updated OS with no antimalware in effect?

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Fantastic, you posted the screenshot I wanted even before I posted my request! 🙂

This confirms that the two OSes have not “merged” or commingled in any way. I was concerned that maybe the page file and crash dump for one OS had appeared in the other OS’s drive, but thanks to your newest shot I see that each one has its own page file and crash dump. So we’re good there.

To address your most recent question–I would advise strongly against going online with Vista if the OS is not updated, the browser (Firefox) is not updated, and there is no active antivirus software on it. Basically, the gates to the city are open and there are no guards at the entrance or even looking down from the watchtower.

Looks like your OSes are configured to open Firefox automatically when you boot into them. For Vista, please open your Start menu, type “msconfig” in the search bar, and then click on the result “msconfig.exe”. Select the “Startup” tab and find the Firefox item on the list, then uncheck it and click on the “Apply” button.

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With the data plug of W7 disconnected, as you can see, all is the same.

Most likely, if you pulled the communication cable from the Win7 HDD while Vista was up and running, based on the fact that the response to re-clicking on the *My Computer* and getting the same response suggests that the system did not automatically scan and detect that change. Probably needed to re-boot for the Vista system to *see* that change. (Or some other manual procedure to tell the Vista system to re-scan for any changes made.)

So, first off, this is what Microsoft does when it creates a multiboot setup–it shows the *Old OS Partition* in your *My Computer* when booted to the *New OS* (Win7), and does the same for the *Old OS* showing the *New OS Partition* in the *My Computer* when booted to the *Old OS* (i.e. Vista), in both OSs the current booted OS assigns the non-booted OS Partition a Drive letter, and allows you to access that partition, change data, move files from one OS partition to another–potentially risky if you change critical system files on the non-booted OS. Other third party multiboot setups often *hide* the *Old OS Partition* so you can not have easy direct access–the *Old OS Partition* is protected, and when booted to the *Old OS*, the *New OS Partition* is hidden from the *Old OS*. There are ways to access it, but you have to be a geek and sort of know what your are doing!

I would like you to consider naming, or if already named, re-naming your various partitions so they have *descriptive* names that are *memorable*. So for instance, here’s a screen shoot you posted previously in this thread:

If you bring that listing back up in Win7, you should be able to *right-click* with the mouse, and select at the bottom of the option menu that pops up *Properties*. You then should get a window that looks mostly like this: …

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I second the suggestion by @nightowl to give new names to the OS drives, reflecting the OS (Vista or 7) that’s on each. Perhaps even the “Recovery” drive could get “Vista” tacked onto its label, for example “Vista Recovery” or “Recovery Vista”.

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in switching between the two OS’s, I’m seeing Vista boot to the desktop and then to Firefox almost “instantly” while W7 takes maybe ½ minute (not timed) to show the desktop and maybe ¾- 1 full minute to open FF. Is this of interest?

Not in this thread. Start a new topic in the appropriate forum.

Probably the two system are doing different startup procedures that effect how long things take.

Looks like you have set things up to start FireFox automatically on startup–hope you did that on purpose.

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Maybe unrelated but could you check if the power and reset button cables are undamaged and attached correctly to the motherboard and the case buttons. Take special note at the motherboard end that the cables are on the correct + and ground pins. The cables could have been damaged or detached from the motherboard when installing the HDD.

There’s still security software working on Vista. For example, I’m using Norton 360 and HitmanPro.Alert on my Vista system. I suspect that Slowpoke47 deactivated his AV because the plan was to transition to Linux, so there was little point in renewing the subscription, but of course the transition has yet to conclude.

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To address your most recent question–I would advise strongly against going online with Vista if the OS is not updated, the browser (Firefox) is not updated, and there is no active antivirus software on it. Basically, the gates to the city are open and there are no guards at the entrance or even looking down from the watchtower. Looks like your OSes are configured to open Firefox automatically when you boot into them. For Vista, please open your Start menu, type “msconfig” in the search bar, and then click on the result “msconfig.exe”. Select the “Startup” tab and find the Firefox item on the list, then uncheck it and click on the “Apply”

I did that, with apprehension, because the only way I knew to get the Vista s/shot into W7 for posting here, etc. was to attach it to a gmail draft in Vista and open it in 7.

Neither OS is set to open FF automatically, they each have a FF icon in the tray.

@slowpoke47, for future reference, here’s one method for posting screenshots at Woody’s here without exposing your Vista system to online threats.:

Take your screenshot normally in Vista. Then, open your Paint application and paste the screenshot onto it. Give it the file name you choose, and then when you go to save it, navigate over to your Windows 7 HDD and save it somewhere on that drive (make sure to remember where you put it).

Now you can shut down Vista, boot into 7, come to Woody’s, and post the screenshot from where you saved it in the Win7 drive.

The procedure is a little roundabout, but preferable to exposing your undefended Vista system to online threats. Hopefully you won’t be needing to do it much more.

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” Take your screenshot normally in Vista. Then, open your Paint application and paste the screenshot onto it. Give it the file name you choose, and then when you go to save it, navigate over to your Windows 7 HDD and save it somewhere on that drive (make sure to remember where you put it). ”

My two-cents contribution to this long-running saga:

I always put the screenshots and other documents I need to append to emails or, in this case, a posting at Woody’s, by saving them to my PCs (or Mac) Desktop. No way I’ll ever forget about where I put them, as I can see them every time I look at the screen, when no other windows are open, especially with none in “full screen” mode.

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In this particular case, though. @slowpoke47 wanted to create the screenshot in Vista and then post it here from Windows 7, so he was going online with the vulnerable Vista system to upload the image to Gmail in order then to boot into 7 to prepare his AskWoody post. The method I described was one way to save the screenshot directly on the Windows 7 drive, avoiding going online with Vista.

One way to accomplish this while preserving your method of saving to the desktop, would be to save it to the Windows 7 desktop from his Vista system. (Forgive me if that’s what you had in mind all along.) In Paint, he could navigate over to the Windows 7 drive (whatever letter was assigned to it), then find the Users folder in that drive, expand it, and select his username from the three folders “Default/username/Public” that will be listed. Finally, under “username” he could click on “Desktop”and place the screenshot there.

Here’s some info about this: Microsoft stopped providing monthly patches for Vista in 2017. Firefox support for Vista ended last year. There’s still security software working on Vista. For example, I’m using Norton 360 and HitmanPro.Alert on my Vista system. I suspect that Slowpoke47 deactivated his AV because the plan was to transition to Linux, so there was little point in renewing the subscription, but of course the transition has yet to conclude.

This is why I was nervous- Vista in this computer has been abandoned since W7 was installed, not long after that OS came out. No a/v on it for years.

Maybe unrelated but could you check if the power and reset button cables are undamaged and attached correctly to the motherboard and the case buttons. Take special note at the motherboard end that the cables are on the correct + and ground pins. The cables could have been damaged or detached from the motherboard when installing the HDD.

Thanks for your post- All of these connections were checked as a matter of habit when I made any changes.

I’m seeing Vista boot to the desktop and then to Firefox almost “instantly” while W7 takes maybe ½ minute (not timed) to show the desktop and maybe ¾- 1 full minute to open FF.

If it’s not Firefox starting up automatically, then are you manually opening Firefox as soon as possible after Vista boots up? If you are not opening Firefox manually, then something is causing it to open without your specific input.

This mini-topic sounds like it could be a distraction from the main discussion in this thread (“off-topic,” as they call it), but I’m wondering if there might be malware on your machine that could also be related to your shutdown problems.

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I have always used Paint to edit screenshots. I think it’s an underrated program (but-what do I know? haha). The move that stopped me was how to get the file from Vista to 7 since the two doc files are independent (aren’t they?)

When saving an image in Paint, it’s easy to save it to the folder or drive that you want. For example, if you’re in Vista, when you go to save the image, just use the left panel of the Explorer-like window that pops up asking you where to save it. Scroll up and down in that left panel to find the drive and folder where you want to save the image, and select it. The location can be a folder on the Windows 7 drive or it can even be an external disk or flash drive: as long as Explorer can see the folder, you can most likely save to it.

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Yeah, Paint is a neat, and underrated, little program. When saving an image in Paint, it’s easy to save it to the folder or drive that you want. For example, if you’re in Vista, when you go to save the image, just use the left panel of the Explorer-like window that pops up asking you where to save it. Scroll up and down in that left panel to find the drive and folder where you want to save the image, and select it. The location can be a folder on the Windows 7 drive or it can even be an external disk or flash drive: as long as Explorer can see the folder, you can most likely save to it.

This is good to know, never needed this before now. (And when this problem is cleared up, I hope not to need it again!) I’m going to keep a note about it, thank you.

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When @ Slowpoke47 boots the Rescue Media for Macrium, what can he expect to see?

Will Macrium load automatically? Or will there be a *Desktop* of sorts with a *Shortcut* Icon for launching Macrium? Or will there be some sort of *Start* button, and have to look for *Programs* and then a *Macrium* entry after pressing the *Start* button?

We need to get ready.

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@nightowl, when he boots the PC with the Macrium Reflect rescue media in the optical drive, his PC will either boot to the Macrium disc directly, or give him a choice to “press any key to boot from CD/DVD”.

Once he boots into the Macrium disc whichever way, the Windows PE environment will load and then launch automatically into Reflect, with no further interaction. Once the loading is finished, he will be able to select drives to back up or to restore to, as desired.

One caveat is that any external HDD where he may want to store a new image, or from which he may want to restore an existing image, should be plugged in before booting. If the external HDD gets connected after the rescue media boots, it may not be recognized and he’ll have to start the process again with the external drive plugged in.

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When @ Slowpoke47 boots the Rescue Media for Macrium, what can he expect to see? Will Macrium load automatically? Or will there be a *Desktop* of sorts with a *Shortcut* Icon for launching Macrium? Or will there be some sort of *Start* button, and have to look for *Programs* and then a *Macrium* entry after pressing the *Start* button?

FWIW, I have an on-again-off-again video project I’ve been tinkering with. It’s still a work in progress so I’m not publicly linking to it yet from the rest of my site, but a little after the 9:00 minute mark it illustrates the Macrium Rescue media booting. Perhaps that’s useful to you.

I also describe the “Fix Windows Boot problems” function at Step 11 in this tutorial.

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(Remember, you can click on the screenshots to get a larger image view.)

This is the Vista Disk Management screenshot. The two red arrows show Disk 0, and Disk 1. So, just as an FYI, Microsoft usually (but not always) starts disk numbering at zero (0). When be look at the Macrium Image Backup summary page shortly, you will see that the disk numbering starts at one (1). That can throw some folks off because it’s not the *same*.

Also, when we look at the next screenshot of the Win7 Disk Management, the two disks will be in the reverse order–just represents a different sort order from one OS to another–the Vista OS and the Win7 OSs are separate from one another–not merged. Again, don’t let it throw you off.

The two blue arrows–one pointing to *System* and the other to *Boot*. For unexplained reasons, these two terms mean the opposite of what you would expect–this is just Microsoft *speak* and we all have to deal with it! *System* means that the boot files are located here. On a *typical* Windows installation, usually the *System* label is found on a small partition at the beginning of the HDD–see the small box at the beginning of the Disk 1 that says 39 MB–that’s where I would have expected to see *System*. So, Dell has chosen to use a *non-standard* setup. (By the way, that 39 MB partition is labeled differently in the Macrium Image Formation summary–it’s the *DellUtility* partition there–we will look at that screenshot shortly. And the *Boot* label means that the operating system files are located here–you would think that would be labeled *System* wouldn’t you?

And the green arrows–the only *Active* partition is the Vista *OS (C:)* partition–the Win7 partition *(F:)* does not have the *Active* label. When your system boots, it has to find the *Active* partition in order to boot successfully, because that’s were the boot files are located.

Now, onto the Win7 Disk Management:

So the red arrows show again the two separate HDDs, but now the listing of the partitions have been switched. Again, not a big deal–just a confusion factor.

Blue arrows: the one pointing to the 39 MB partition in Disk 0 is labeled up in the top portion of the Disk Management with the Red Box around it as *OEM* Partition–again, it will be labeled *DellUtility* in the Macrium screenshot.

The blue arrow pointing to *System* in the 3rd partition (the *OS (D:)*–the Vista OS partition) of Disk 0 indicates that the boot files are in that partition. And the blue arrow pointing to *Boot* in Disk 1 shows that the OS files are located there for the Win7 OS.

Green arrows–two of them have the label *Not Active* to emphasize that the Win7 OS located on *C:* is not the active partition. The *Active* partition has to be where the boot files are located–and we have previously determined that they are on the Vista HDD, and now specifically on the OS *System* partition (i.e. the *OS (D:)* partition.

So, onto the Macrium Image Summary page:

So, notice that the top disk is *Disk 1*, and the next one down is *Disk 2*–the numbering is different from Microsoft’s numbering.

The first two red arrows on Disk 1 point to the first partition on the Vista HDD, and point out that the label is now *DellUtility*, and is the 39 MB partition. And the third arrow in Disk 1 points out that the *OS (D:)* partition is the *Active* partition.

The final red arrow on Disk 2 points out that there is no *Active* designation for the Win7 partition (the *(C:)* partition), the only partition on the Win7 HDD.

Questions?

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I’ve looked at dg1261’s two links, and have somewhat of an inkling what to expect. But, with my lack of experience and compromised hearing (tinnitus), I don’t think I could perform these operations without further help. But I’m ready for some non-tech-level guidance, if offered.

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Sorry for taking so long, I’m in and out of the office the rest of the day.

If I remember correctly, once Slowpoke47 is finished restoring his selected image to the desired HDD, he can click on the red X on the upper right as if it were a normal Windows window. Then the program will close and either the CD/DVD will slide out on its own, or it will ask to press Enter to log out and then start to reboot. (He may have to open the CD tray manually to make sure it doesn’t boot right back into the Macrium rescue disc.)

My recollection of the process is obviously a bit fuzzy, but I can say for sure that once you’re in the process, the steps to get out of Macrium and reboot are well indicated and hard to misinterpret.

I’ll see if I get a chance to try it out this afternoon with my Macrium disc, and report back if still needed.

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So, let’s get ready to load the Macrium Recovery Media and do a test run of things.

Remember this: You can not screw anything up unless you start hitting options and buttons randomly! Do not put checks in boxes and then hit an *Apply* button. Macrium does have check boxes to select various harddrives (HDDs) and/or individual partitions–those are meaningless unless you again hit a button that says *Restore*, or *Next*, or something of that nature.

And, you can never cause any major problems if you *create* an image. It could be the *wrong* image, but the creation on an image will not cause any harm.

It’s when it’s time to *restore* an image to the HDD that you have to be *spot on* correct! Restoring wipes out everything on the drive and replaces it with whatever is on the image! If you restore the Vista partition to your Win7 partition–you will be a very unhappy computer user!

3. Because your optical drive is 1st on the Boot Priority list in the BIOS, you should only have to *Restart* your system from Windows. As Cybertooth said, either the disc will automatically load the Macrium software, or you will have a message to *Hit any key to boot from the CD … *

4. Once the Macrium software loads, look around. Select the *Restore* Icon, and it should bring up a dialogue box to select an image file source. You should be able to use a drop down arrow or the box with the … (dots) in it to bring up a selection menu. Look for your external HDD.

5. Once you see the file listed, select it and hit the *Next* button, or maybe it will be the *Open* button. It should load the image file and allow you to look at it. You should see a summary page much like we have been looking at here for the Image Creation Summary–you should see two HDDs listed–your Win7 HDD should show a single partition, and the Vista HDD should have the 3 partitions listed. Stop! You are done here!

6. Hit the *Cancel* button.

7. Remove your Rescue Media CD disc. Then hit the red box with the X in it to close out the Macrium software. (There might be some other exit information seen, or maybe it might say *Reboot*–any of these items should work. Possible Ctrl-Alt-Delete may work as well. If all else has failed, hold down the power button until your system shuts down.)

8. In theory, this should send you to a reboot sequence that takes you back to the Windows OS selection screen, etc. If you had to power down, then hit the power button to start up again.

If you’re unsure of anything–don’t proceed. Ask questions until you’re satisfied that you can proceed comfortably.

Report back here when done! Write down questions you run across as you go and ask them once back here.

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Just to beat it to death- this would be the system image just made last week?

I’m assuming that, once this is started, I will not have the ability to come back here for help via this PC until finished. I may be able to set up a laptop nearby and bring up this thread, might be a few minutes at it.

I’m assuming that, once this is started, I will not have the ability to come back here for help via this PC until finished.

Well, you should only be gone for 5-10 minutes at most!

But, correct–until you reboot, you probably will not have access to the internet. I think there are some Recovery Media that offers browsers and internet access, but I’m not sure of this Macrium Rescue Media.

Not that I’m aware of. There’s no need for it, really, as all the user is doing is to create or restore disk images.While setting itself up, WinPE does ask if you want to install some drivers, such as for Ethernet, but I haven’t found any way to make use of them in that environment so I just ignore that and click on “Continue.”

As far as I know, the only thing you can do with the Macrium Reflect rescue media is to use the functions offered from within Macrium Reflect. There’s no way to use any other program that’s not linked to it. Maybe one could browse one of the images and find a program to try and click on, but I’d be surprised if it worked. This rescue CD is really a single-purpose disc.

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While setting itself up, WinPE does ask if you want to install some drivers, such as for Ethernet, but I haven’t found any way to make use of them in that environment

I’ll bet that is so you can use a network to browse Macruim to a remote computer for a stored image file–or maybe to remotely create and/or restore an image file to that remote computer. Advanced usage!

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PC back up and running- the Macrium screen was slightly different from what I thought I read in NightOwl’s step-by-step, but close enough that I think I did it right. There was no “cancel” button anywhere on the screen (step 6) unless you meant the usual red button, top right of screen. The rescue CD is removed, but the System Image HD is still connected.

Once I removed the rescue disc, the screen went completely black, nothing at all on it. I waited a little, nothing happened. Pressed esc and the PC began the normal bootup, usual black screen to start to choose Vista or 7. The rest of the way was almost normal, then the normal desktop appeared, and I’m back using the same PC to report the result.

@slowpoke47, that sounds just about right. It looks like you’re back in business!

The procedure for exiting the Macrium rescue disc is to click on that red X button and then let the PC boot back up, bypassing (ignoring) the option to boot again into the rescue disc. Sounds like you removed the rescue disc before hitting the red X button to exit Macrium?

Bear in mind that this was downloaded using a bootable flash drive, which I’m saving to use, at some point, on the laptop, where it will be a partition. (Big talk, but hoping for help if needed). As of yet, I have done nothing with this OS other than to poke around. If an image is your recommendation, would that be before any added software,etc.?

By “fine,” I mean that nothing got messed up when you got that black screen after you were done with the Macrium rescue disc, and we can proceed to the next step. We still need to fix your Windows 7 bootup and shutdown issues, and then ultimately to replace your Vista with Linux while keeping the ability to select which OS to boot into once you have Linux and Win7 inside your PC.

@nightowl has an excellent handle on how to proceed here, so I will avoid stepping on his toes as to what is to be done next.

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Once I removed the rescue disc, the screen went completely black, nothing at all on it. I waited a little, nothing happened.

Well, that’s my bad. I gave you instructions that I am able to use with the imaging software that I use that’s on a Linux Rescue Media. It behaves differently than the Macrium. Next time, just leave the CD in the optical drive, hit the red box with the X in it, and let the Macrium Rescue Media shut itself down. When the system reboots, and you get the message to *Hit any key to boot from the optical media* you can just wait and the system will shortly begin the normal bootup sequence. Once booted, remove the Rescue Media CD.

You can leave it hooked up for as long as you want, but you can disconnect it whenever you are not going to use it to create a backup image file, or you are not planning on booting the Rescue Media CD to either create an image backup, or restore an image backup.

If an image is your recommendation, would that be before any added software,etc.?

Yes–no added software! We will probably try making the image tomorrow. I am not recommending creating the image file for the sake of backing up the Linux HDD. I’m recommending it for two other reasons: 1. To give you more practice so you can find out what you might not understand and can ask questions about, and 2. We will be setting things up so we can determine what happens when you restore an image file to a HDD using the Rescue Media on your system. There can be a couple potential glitches or problems that can occur, and we will need to know about them ahead of time before you can depend on the image creation and restore functions going forward.

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OK, back in business. Some difficulties with gmail and also in getting to this site this morning, but snuck in thru the back door. Currently up and running, rescue CD out and system image disk removed yesterday.

Okay. First, before installing the Linux HDD in place of the Win7 HDD, and any more booting the Macrium Rescue Media, I want you to do some housekeeping preparation.

Do you have a Win7 Repair Disc? I suspect probably not. Here’s how to create it:

Go to the Start button, in the Search box type *Repair*. The topmost choice should say “Create a System Repair Disc”. Chick on that. It should take you to the Create a System Repair Disc dialogue box. You will need to put a recordable CD in your drive, make sure your optical drive is selected, and then click *Create disc*. It should then automatically create the disc.

While we’re at it. Do you have a password protecting your computer at startup or if the system has been sleeping or hibernating–do you have to type in your password to get back to your desktop or wherever you last were using the system? If *Yes*, do you have an emergency password reset diskette or USB flashdrive?

If *No*, then I would recommend you create one. Go to Start > then Control Panel > the User Accounts > then in the left hand column, you should see *Create a password reset disk*. Click on that. (You can only use a floppy diskette, or a USB flash/thumb drive–you are not able to use a recordable CD for this one. If you don’t have a floppy disk drive, or a small capacity USB flash/thumb available, put this task on hold until you have what you need–come back here and create your password reset disk.)

And thirdly, have you created new labels for your HDD partition names yet, as I recommended here? :

I would like you to consider naming, or if already named, re-naming your various partitions so they have *descriptive* names that are *memorable*. So for instance, here’s a screen shoot you posted previously in this thread:

You seemed hesitant to do this. Is there a problem of understanding how to do this? Or do you have some concern about the effects of doing this? Or … ? It will really help to avoid mistakes when choosing various HDDs and/or partitions when doing image formation or restores–both in Windows, or especially when using the Macrium Rescue Media–which has a slightly different appearance than the Windows based software.

Let me know.

I’m going to be here for the next half hour or so, and then I have an unexpected chore that I have to attend to. I can respond with a short post before I leave. Be gone until later afternoon–which I think is evening for you. I’ll post when I’m back, and see if you are still up and using your computer.

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’m going to be here for the next half hour or so, and then I have an unexpected chore that I have to attend to. I can respond with a short post before I leave. Be gone until later afternoon–which I think is evening for you. I’ll post when I’m back, and see if you are still up and using your computer.

Thanks- I’ll get to work on this. I’ve also been engaged elsewhere, and will be away for most of tomorrow. On Thurs, back around mid-aft DST.

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One last bit of housekeeping–in the BIOS screenshots you posted, this one has me wondering:

The 1st HDD in the Priority list is your Win7 HDD, and the 2nd drive listed is the Vista drive.

If you recall, when looking at the Disk Management screenshots, the actual Active boot drive is the Vista drive. Once the boot files are read from the Vista partition, the system then switches over to the Win7 partition to run the Win7 OS:

Green arrows–two of them have the label *Not Active* to emphasize that the Win7 OS located on *C:* is not the active partition. The *Active* partition has to be where the boot files are located–and we have previously determined that they are on the Vista HDD, and now specifically on the OS *System* partition (i.e. the *OS (D:)* partition.

So, the HDD disk priority setting ends up creating this in the *Boot Priority* listing:

Which is *technically* wrong. But, your system seems to be by-passing that incorrect setting.

So, my question(s) is/are: did you change the HDD Priority listing either when you first installed the new HDD and installed the Linux OS. After that, when you found out that your Win7 would not boot, did you reset that BIOS setting again? When you wanted your Win7 HDD to boot to Win7 OS, did you change that BIOS setting.

Reason for questions–did your shut down freezing began after you installed the new HDD and the Linux OS, and after you made any changes to the HDD priority list in the BIOS (if in fact you did)?

Until we successfully switch the bootloader from the Vista HDD to the Win7 HDD, I would like to have you go into the BIOS and set that HDD Prioity list to your Vista HDD being 1st, and the Win7 HDD being 2nd. (And, let’s see if your shut down freezes are effected in any way.)

So, my question(s) is/are: did you change the HDD Priority listing either when you first installed the new HDD and installed the Linux OS. After that, when you found out that your Win7 would not boot, did you reset that BIOS setting again? When you wanted your Win7 HDD to boot to Win7 OS, did you change that BIOS setting.

Reason for questions–did your shut down freezing began after you installed the new HDD and the Linux OS, and after you made any changes to the HDD priority list in the BIOS (if in fact you did)?

Not sure- this could be. I’ve been manipulating so many items last couple of weeks ago that I can’t say. FWIW, when doing the Disk Management s/shot yesterday, the shutdown hung up when closing Vista. But yesterday p.m. and earlier today in W7, shutdown was slightly sluggish but completed.

NightOwl wrote: NightOwl wrote: I would like you to consider naming, or if already named, re-naming your various partitions so they have *descriptive* names that are *memorable*. So for instance, here’s a screen shoot you posted previously in this thread: You seemed hesitant to do this. Is there a problem of understanding how to do this?

I see that Start>Computer gives me the option to rename partitions on a drop-down menu from a rt.-click. Any naming suggestions?

@slowpoke47, just to make sure that we know exactly what you’re looking at, are you looking at the “Rename” option in the drop-down menu that appears when you have Windows Explorer open and you right-click on a drive (C:, D:, etc.)? See the screenshot below:

If this is the sort of thing that you are looking at, then like @nightowl I recommend that you give the Vista drive and its associated recovery partition names that clearly indicate what they are. Assuming that the Vista drive is C: and its recovery drive is D:, for example, you could name them “Vista” and “Vista Recovery.” You could name the Windows 7 drive “Windows 7.” (It doesn’t pay to get clever or creative with the names when the goal is to easily tell what’s what. 🙂 )

There is no need to type in the drive letters. For better or worse, Windows will assign the letters after you’re done typing and hit Enter. You will (probably) be asked for Administrator permission to do this, and then you’ll be back at the drive naming box where you might have to retype the name you want, and then hit Enter.

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@slowpoke47, just to make sure that we know exactly what you’re looking at, are you looking at the “Rename” option in the drop-down menu that appears when you have Windows Explorer open and you right-click on a drive (C:, D:, etc.)? See the screenshot below:

Yes, that’s what I am looking at.

Looking back at the Disk Management s/shots, if we accept that a given disk that shows the same GB figures (581.48 for example) in both s/shots is in fact the same disk, called out as C: in Vista and D: in W7, how does that affect the renaming in W7? Do I go back into Vista and give that volume the same name?

@slowpoke47, we’ve established upthread that the 581GB drive (actually, partition) contains the Vista OS, and that the 298GB drive contains your Windows 7 OS. The drive lettering will be taken care of (in a confusing manner) by Windows; so what you need to make sure of is that you give each drive a name that corresponds to the OS that’s on it.

I am not certain that if (say) you rename the drives from within Vista, that the names will persist if you then boot into Windows 7. I believe the names will hold, but checking that is as simple as renaming the drives in one OS and then rebooting into the other OS to see what happened to the drive names. If the names don’t hold, you could always rename the drives from within that other OS too and then both Vista and 7 will have the same names for the same drives. (The drive letters are a different matter…)

And to answer your question–yes, each drive contains everything that pertains to the OS that is on it: system files, personal data, and so forth. The only exception is the boot sector, which while residing on your Vista disk also contains the boot info for Windows 7. We’ll be seeking to take care of that later on, so that you can boot into Windows 7 without need of the Vista disk.

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@slowpoke47, we’ve established upthread that the 581GB drive (actually, partition) contains the Vista OS, and that the 298GB drive contains your Windows 7 OS. The drive lettering will be taken care of (in a confusing manner) by Windows; so what you need to make sure of is that you give each drive a name that corresponds to the OS that’s on it.

Thanks. Looks like I should go into Start>Computer in W7 and rename the smaller one Win7 and the larger one Vista- yes?

You got it. It doesn’t matter. While you’re at it, it’s a good idea to also rename the Recovery drive by adding “Vista” to the name, so that there can be no mistaking as to which OS it’s a recovery drive for.

Thank you- this is now done. Not able to continue here until tomorrow mid-afternoon

Interesting! If you did not adjust the hard drive (HDD) priority order, then I have to imagine that the BIOS is somehow making changes when you have switched out HDDs. I don’t like computer related *stuff* that is *automated* in order to try be *helpful*, but then gets it wrong!

Until we successfully switch the bootloader from the Vista HDD to the Win7 HDD, I would like to have you go into the BIOS and set that HDD Prioity list to your Vista HDD being 1st, and the Win7 HDD being 2nd. (And, let’s see if your shut down freezes are effected in any way.)

Have you done this yet? Has it made any difference in the freezing during shut down?

So, *naming* is going to be a *personal* preference–whatever works for you. I think your names should clearly tell you what you are looking at. Because Windows will give the various partitions a drive letter that many not match up when you switch which OS you are using, I like to include the drive letter a partition would be if I was using that partition with it’s native drive letter assignment. (There’s a reason Window has to mix the drive letters up–when booted to the Win7 OS, you can’t give the partition that has the Win7 OS on it the drive letter *C:/*, and the Vista OS partition that same drive letter–it has to have a different one–so it was given the drive letter *D:\*. And that same logic occurred when the Vista OS was booted to–the Vista OS partition was give the drive letter *C:\*, so the Win7 partition could not also be assigned that same drive letter–so it was given *F:\*.

So I like to put in the native drive letter for that partition if I was booted to the OS on that HDD–so my suggestions:

Vista HDD:

*C-Vista OS* for what was originally just *OS*
*D-Vista Recovery* for what was originally just *Recovery*
*Vista DellUtility* for what was originally just *DellUtility*–this partition does not get a drive letter assigned either when Vista is booted or when Win7 is booted–it’s technically a partition the average user is not supposed to have access to and having no drive letter prevents inadvertent access by an average user–but as you can see, it is *visible* to Disk Management and the Macrium imaging software.

Looking back at the Disk Management s/shots, if we accept that a given disk that shows the same GB figures (581.48 for example) in both s/shots is in fact the same disk, called out as C: in Vista and D: in W7, how does that affect the renaming in W7? Do I go back into Vista and give that volume the same name?

Whatever you name a partition, it will be *sticky* and follow that partition to whatever OS you are booted to. If you initially name it in Win7, you will be able to see that same name when you are booted to Vista, or when you are booted to the Macrium Rescue Media. You do not have to *rename* it in any other OS. But, if you were to rename it in Vista (you will be able to do that just like you did it in Win7), then that *new name* will follow it to whatever OS you boot, and the name stays the same until you *rename* again, if you are so inclined

I’m not sure what you mean by this. It very much *matters*! You have two HDDs, the larger one is your Vista HDD, and it has 3 partitions on it. And the other smaller HDD is your Win7 HDD and has only a single partition on it. You need to be aware of those distinctions, especially when doing imaging creating an image backup, and performing restores of image files! You will be *lost* if you do not have an awareness of your system layout (2 HDDs), and the layout on the individual HDDs (single or multiple partitions).

Looking back at the Disk Management s/shots, if we accept that a given disk that shows the same GB figures (581.48 for example) in both s/shots is in fact the same disk, called out as C: in Vista and D: in W7, how does that affect the renaming in W7?

That’s an important observation. In addition to partition names, you can also keep track of things using the partition sizes, or the entire HDD disk size. It’s not a bad idea to record those numbers on paper so you can refer to them when booted to the Macrim Rescue Media, and if you are unsure which drive or partition you’re looking at.

Looks like you have named the partitions on the Vista HDD and Win7 HDD–take a new screenshot of the Disk Management readout to show us what the HDDs now show.

Did you create a Win7 Repair Disc?

Did you create a Win7 Password Reset floppy disk or flash/thumb drive disk? (If you use a password to access your system after booting.)

Did you go to the BIOS and switch the HDD priority from the Win7 HDD being first to the Vista HDD being first? (Have you shut down since making that change? Did it make any difference to the system freezing during shutdown? Keep tabs on that for the next day or two, and let us know if there’s any change in shutdown behavior.

More to come in a little while …

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@nightowl, while we wait for Slowpoke47 to come back, I’d like to comment on one thing you wrote above:

…There’s a reason Window has to mix the drive letters up–when booted to the Win7 OS, you can’t give the partition that has the Win7 OS on it the drive letter *C:/*, and the Vista OS partition that same drive letter–it has to have a different one–so it was given the drive letter *D:\*. And that same logic occurred when the Vista OS was booted to–the Vista OS partition was give the drive letter *C:\*, so the Win7 partition could not also be assigned that same drive letter–so it was given *F:\*.

So I like to put in the native drive letter for that partition if I was booted to the OS on that HDD…

Wouldn’t this mean, for example, that if Slowpoke47 booted into Vista, Windows Explorer would then show the name of his Windows 7 drive as “C-Win7 (F:)”? To my mind, the “C-” part in the name is unnecessary because the drive for the active OS will be assigned C anyway; and in a less alert moment, seeing such a listing in Explorer could even become the source of momentary confusion.

Ultimately, of course, it’s a matter of preference and what best suits the way the particular user’s mind works. Slowpoke47 will find out.

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So, you’re probably saying *What the heck is this all about?! I just want to make my Win7 boot independent from my Vista HDD!*

Well, the answer is there is probably an easy way to accomplish the change to the bootloader to accomplish what you desire. But, I’m not able to *guarantee* that everything will work out! There could be a *gotcha* that will bite us in the butt! That being said, I want you to have the necessary tools to hopefully recover without too much angst should something go wrong.

Secondly, you need to know that the two following statements are very different from each other:

1. A imaging program such as Macrium with a stated option of “Repair the boot files if unable to boot*.

2. Move the boot files from one partition to another, or move the boot files from one hard drive (HDD) to another HDD, and be able to boot from that other partition or HDD.

If you make an image of a whole HDD or of a partition only, and then restore that whole HDD image or partition image to the same original HDD, there is almost never a boot problem. That makes it easy!

But, if you restore your image to a *new* HDD, there is almost always a boot problem. This occurs because of the way the Microsoft default HDD identification is implemented in its boot files. Microsoft uses disk identifier IDs which are dependent on the disk ID plus the partition ID, and ….? whatever else Microsoft uses. It’s not important how Microsoft comes up with the ID–what’s important is that any *new* HDD will have a different disk identifier. And, the boot files do not update *automatically*! And there’s the rub–if the boot files are looking for the previous disk identifier, and the new HDD has a new disk identifier, then the boot file will not *find* that new HDD and will report a *boot failure* of some sort.

So, we have to able to *fix* the boot files in order to able to boot, i.e. fix the boot failure. This basically is copying the new HDD identifier to the boot loader files so they once again match. This is what the *boot repair* function is all about in the Macrium Rescue Media. But, I have not used the Macrium boot repair, and I’ve not seen others who have reported success using it. So, I’d rather use a known emergency repair software–and that is the Win7 Repair Disc that I had you create. Microsoft made the bootloader file system that you are using now, it seems logical that the best tool to repair a boot failure problem should also be Microsoft–make sense?

So, the Win7 Repair Disc is almost the same as the Macrim Rescue Media–they are both based on the Microsoft WinPE bootable emergency boot media. So, I want you to practice booting to the Win7 Repair Disc so you become familiar with it:

-Put the disc in the optical drive, and re-start your system.
-You should get the *Press any key to boot from the CD* message–press a key.
-You should see similar booting messages that you saw with the Macrium Rescue Media.
-Eventually, you will get a Window that says *System Recovery Options*.
-And a box saying *Select a Keyboard input method* and probably *US* selected by default.
-After selecting *US*, there will likely be a *Searching for Windows Installations* window.
-You might then get a window stating *Windows found problems with your computer’s start up options*.
-There will be a link to *View Details*, a button *Repair and restart*, and a button *No*.
-If this has occurred, for now choose *No*.
-You should now get the *System Recovery Options* window again, but this time with two options, and probably the top option is selected by default with a dot in the circle–leave it that way
-Below those two options will be a box that probably lists your two Windows installations–the Vista, and the Win7
-And below that two buttons, Load Drivers, and Next–choose *Next*
-You should now see a window that says *Choose a Recovery Tool*, and on my system I had my Operating System listed: Windows 7 on (C:) Win7_SSD.
-The topmost tool choice is *Startup Repair*–this is what you will want if you need to do a boot failure repair.
-Don’t choose Anything in the list of tools for now! There will be two buttons at the bottom: Shut Down and Restart.
-Choose *Restart*.
-Leave the Win7 Repair Disc in the optical drive until you have successfully re-booted to your Windows OS, do not *hit any key* during re-boot, just wait until re-booted to your OS. Now you can remove the Win7 Repair Disc.

So, *naming* is going to be a *personal* preference–whatever works for you.

I’m not suggesting @ Slowpoke do it *my way* or *your way*–it just has to be consistent and clear to the individual user what’s going on.

The *confusion factor* is there either way–it’s just which way one designates the partition names that makes sense to the user. Note: The actual drive letters that the OS has assigned will be listed, regardless of what name has been used in the partition name.

NightOwl wrote: Until we successfully switch the bootloader from the Vista HDD to the Win7 HDD, I would like to have you go into the BIOS and set that HDD Prioity list to your Vista HDD being 1st, and the Win7 HDD being 2nd. (And, let’s see if your shut down freezes are effected in any way.)

I’m not sure that the photo indicates any problem. Need to highlight (select) the top *1st Drive* and then press *Enter*, and then see if it will allow you to highlight (select) your Vista HDD and again press *Enter*.

If that does not work, highlight that *1st Drive*, and then press *Enter* and this time see if you can select *Disabled* , and see if your Win7 HDD is then listed as disabled, or the *1st Drive* is listed as disabled, and the *2nd Drive* is still listed as the Vista HDD.

If that still does not work, head over to the Boot Settings and select the *3rd Boot Device* and press *Enter*. Does that option give you the chance to select your Vista HDD? If *Yes*, select your Vista HDD and press *Enter*.

Exit the BIOS settings using *F10: Save & Exit Setup*

If for any reason, you are unable to boot back to you Win7 OS, undo the BIOS changes made, use *F10: Save & Exit Setup*, and reboot to Win7.

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I’m not sure that the photo indicates any problem. Need to highlight (select) the top *1st Drive* and then press *Enter*, and then see if it will allow you to highlight (select) your Vista HDD and again press *Enter*.

I’ll try this again, but first, here’s what happened with the Repair Disc:

With disc in drive, pressed power button on case to start. Black screen, “Windows is loading files.” Then- “Select Keyboard Method” (US) as you predicted. Next box shown here:

Bottom option selected by default, but I selected the top option as in photo. Selected “Next” then screen shown below appeared, as you predicted:

So far, the results more or less match your description. But clicking “Restart” here sends the system back to the beginning, “Windows is loading files” and the whole sequence detailed above repeats. The second time clicked “Shutdown” which did happen, then restarted using power button on case.

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Looking at Slowpoke47’s BIOS menu across the bottom, is it possible he might need to use the arrow keys to move the selected drive up or down, as the case may be?

I know what your talking about–I have run across having to use the up and down arrows to move a selection. I think it has to actually say something to that effect i.e. *To move a selection* in that bottom row–otherwise I think the up/down arrows are to move to the next item to highlight it–then you can select it by pressing *Enter*.

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So far, the results more or less match your description. But clicking “Restart” here sends the system back to the beginning, “Windows is loading files” and the whole sequence detailed above repeats.

Okay, well it looks like your system behavior was slightly different from mine. Sounds like you were able to improvise my instructions around the spots where things differed–good job!

I presume you saw that repair tool *Startup Repair*–you’ll want to get there if needed in the future–and the future is coming soon, I think.

When I clicked *Restart*, I had the system reboot, shortly after going through the initial startup screens, I got the *Press any key to boot from the CD*, and if I did not press a key–it booted to the OS. Your system appears to be behaving differently than mine. So, in your case shutting down may be your best option. And then removing the Repair Disc quickly before it has a chance to boot upon restart of you system.

I acknowledge I was late to the party this aft, and unfortunately I have a meeting in about half an hour, at 6:45 EDT. I may not be able to get back to this tonight, but I will be able to do that by about 10 tomorrow morning when I get back from an early appointment. As before, many thanks to both for your help and patience!

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The second sentence: *If your operating system isn’t listed, click Load Drivers and then install drivers for your hard disks.*

As you can see, your Windows OSs were not listed in the empty white box.

That would indicate that the Rescue Disk is unable to communicate with your HDDs through the hard drive controller. Unless you are using a third party hard drive controller, it is odd that the WinPE Rescue Media is unable to work correctly with your HDD controller. Are you aware of anything out of the ordinary regarding you hard drive hook up and controller as far as your system is concerned?

Please post the Dell model number of your system–hopefully that will allow me to see its specifications and look for anything unusual.

If the Repair Disc can not communicate with your HDDs, then it can not repair any startup problems that may occur.

We can check your hardware, and the HDD controller drivers in *Device Manager*, but let’s finish up the other stuff first.

I think Macrium Rescue Media was able to communicate with your HDDs–we will have to double check that now that we see this problem. But if the Macrium Rescue Media was able to communicate, then the Repair Disk should have been able to as well …. hmmmmm …. COMPUTERS!

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I’m not sure that the photo indicates any problem. Need to highlight (select) the top *1st Drive* and then press *Enter*, and then see if it will allow you to highlight (select) your Vista HDD and again press *Enter*. If that does not work, highlight that *1st Drive*, and then press *Enter* and this time see if you can select *Disabled* , and see if your Win7 HDD is then listed as disabled, or the *1st Drive* is listed as disabled, and the *2nd Drive* is still listed as the Vista HDD.

Messed around with this and was able to select the Vista HDD, then F10, “save and exit.” But the bootup sequence still showed the same black screen as before, with W7 as the default, highlighted in white.

This has to be my last post for today, back tomorrow about 10 EDT. Thanks!

Until we successfully switch the bootloader from the Vista HDD to the Win7 HDD, I would like to have you go into the BIOS and set that HDD Prioity list to your Vista HDD being 1st, and the Win7 HDD being 2nd. (And, let’s see if your shut down freezes are effected in any way.)

Which is *technically* wrong. But, your system seems to be by-passing that incorrect setting.

“*technically* wrong” was referring to the Win7 HDD being set as the boot HDD (1st in the priority list) when the Vista HDD has the *Active* setting and has the boot files on it. Your system was still booting successfully even with the *wrong* setting pointing to the Win7 HDD–making the setting *right* (having the Vista HDD as the 1st HDD in the Priority List) should not have changed anything about the boot process that was already ignoring any *wrong* setting in the BIOS!

Let me know if your shut down function shows any change in behavior.

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Previous advice centered on repairing the bootloader (with some variations) as I thought I did not have the W7 installation disc. Turns out I do in fact have it, apparently sent with that W7 HD and forgotten in a drawer-

I thought I remembered you saying you did have the Win7 Installation disc. Hopefully this is good news! The OS installation disc also has a *Startup Repair* function available. As mentioned above, for some reason the *Repair Disc* that I had you make is reporting that it does not *see* your installed Windows OSs, and is asking for missing driver software. I looked at your system information for the Dell Inspiron 519, and there was nothing obvious as to why you would need any type of special *drivers*. So, I’m baffled by that problem with the *Repair Disc*.

I had to dig around to find my installation disc–finally did, and I’m going to test it momentarily to recall the steps involved.

If you’re at your computer, I’ll be offline for awhile while testing my Win7 installation disc.

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I guess you don’t remember, I was wanting to change that setting in the BIOS to see if had any effect on your slow or frozen *shut down*.

Yes, I do remember. I just thought the default boot order would now highlight Vista.

Shutdown function currently erratic. On occasion, it proceeds normally, without the intermediate message re Task Host Window preventing shutdown. Sometimes, that intermediate message appears momentarily and then shutdown proceeds. Sometimes, the Force Shutdown sequence happens. And, the last step, the actual shutdown, sometimes happens in short order, sometimes after a wait of several minutes to perhaps ½ hour, and sometimes gets hung up, needing to be concluded with the power button- not consistent with any of the listed scenarios.

The BIOS setting will not change any software settings! The boot loader that allows you to select either the Win7 or Vista OS is a software that stands alone, and the BIOS will not change anything there. You can change the *Default* OS if you wanted to, to the Vista OS. I think I can show you how, but I think you want the Win7 to be the *default*–Yes?

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Just tried a restart for the heckuvit. I typically close down all programs before doing that, close Firefox, wait a minute or even two, and hit Shut down>Restart. This time, I got the “Program preventing shutdown” then “Force restart?” (Yes), shows Task Host Window, my old buddy, as the holdup. Proceeded to “shutting down,” hung there for about two minutes, then continued as expected.

The second sentence: *If your operating system isn’t listed, click Load Drivers and then install drivers for your hard disks.*

As you can see, your Windows OSs were not listed in the empty white box.

That would indicate that the Rescue Disk is unable to communicate with your HDDs through the hard drive controller. Unless you are using a third party hard drive controller, it is odd that the WinPE Rescue Media is unable to work correctly with your HDD controller.

I think I stumbled on a critical variable that is responsible for the Repair Disc function to misbehave. When I tried the Win7 Installation Disc, I booted from one of my *other* OS partitions, not the Win7 partition. I got that very same *empty white box* with no Windows installations listed. I had previously booted the Win7 Repair Disc and had no problem having my Win7 installation listed in that box. It took awhile, but it suddenly hit me–maybe it depends on what OS partition I was last booted to that makes the difference?! Tested that theory, and so far that’s the answer–at least on my system.

We need to find out if that’s the answer on your systems as well. I’m only guessing right now, but do you remember–when you tested out your Win7 Repair Disc yesterday, had you just been booted to your Vista OS, shut down, and then immediately booted from the Repair Disc?–and you did not re-boot first to your Win7 OS?

Let’s test it out and see what happens–I really hope this works because I want you to be able to access that *Startup Repair* tool, and have your Windows Win7 and/or Vista showing up in that Windows Installations Found white box:

So, make sure you have booted to your Win7 OS. Put your Win7 Repair Disc in your optical drive (if you get any *autoplay* popups, dismiss them). Shut down making sure to use the *Restart* option (if your system freezes and will not complete the shut down, force the shut down, but do not try to run the Repair Disc. Reboot to your Win7 OS and try the restart option again.) When it finally works, let the system go through the restart, and when you see the *Press any key to boot from the CD or DVD* message, press a key, and let the Repair Disc software load.

-Put the disc in the optical drive, and re-start your system.
-You should get the *Press any key to boot from the CD* message–press a key.
-You should see similar booting messages that you saw with the Macrium Rescue Media.
-Eventually, you will get a Window that says *System Recovery Options*.
-And a box saying *Select a Keyboard input method* and probably *US* selected by default.
-After selecting *US*, there will likely be a *Searching for Windows Installations* window.
-You might then get a window stating *Windows found problems with your computer’s start up options*.
-There will be a link to *View Details*, a button *Repair and restart*, and a button *No*.
-If this has occurred, for now choose *No*.
-You should now get the *System Recovery Options* window again, but this time with two options, and probably the top option is selected by default with a dot in the circle–leave it that way
-Below those two options will be a box that probably lists your two Windows installations–the Vista, and the Win7
-And below that two buttons, Load Drivers, and Next–choose *Next*
-You should now see a window that says *Choose a Recovery Tool*, and on my system I had my Operating System listed: Windows 7 on (C:) Win7_SSD.
-The topmost tool choice is *Startup Repair*–this is what you will want if you need to do a boot failure repair.
-Don’t choose Anything in the list of tools for now! There will be two buttons at the bottom: Shut Down and Restart.
-Choose *Restart*.
-Leave the Win7 Repair Disc in the optical drive until you have successfully re-booted to your Windows OS, do not *hit any key* during re-boot, just wait until re-booted to your OS. Now you can remove the Win7 Repair Disc.

How did it go? Did you get at least the Win7 OS Installation listed in the *white box*?

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So, make sure you have booted to your Win7 OS. Put your Win7 Repair Disc in your optical drive (if you get any *autoplay* popups, dismiss them). Shut down making sure to use the *Restart* option (if your system freezes and will not complete the shut down, force the shut down, but do not try to run the Repair Disc. Reboot to your Win7 OS and try the restart option again.) When it finally works, let the system go through the restart, and when you see the *Press any key to boot from the CD or DVD* message, press a key, and let the Repair Disc software load.

I’ve been in and out of both systems so many times lately that I can’t say which boot immediately preceded the Repair Disc boot. But I’m sure I didn’t insert the Repair Disc while Vista was booted up. If I understand this correctly, you want the PC to have run a complete bootup-shutdown cycle in W7 before the startup in which I’ll run the Disc. So I would start W7, allow it to boot up, then restart W7 and, with 7 booted up, insert the Repair Disc. Is that right

@slowpoke47, yes, that’s what @nightowl is requesting. Boot into Windows 7, then put the Repair Disc in, and only then restart. You will need to restart a second time, only if the first shutdown isn’t clean and you had to force it.

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@slowpoke47, yes, that’s what @nightowl is requesting. Boot into Windows 7, then put the Repair Disc in, and only then restart. You will need to restart a second time, only if the first shutdown isn’t clean and you had to force it. Good luck!

Thank you. So, to be clear, if the restart hangs up and I have to kill the power to force it, and then restart via the power button, does the Disc stay in the optical drive the whole while?

So, to be clear, if the restart hangs up and I have to kill the power to force it, and then restart via the power button, does the Disc stay in the optical drive the whole while?

It can, as long as you don’t *Press any key to boot from the CD or DVD*, if the restart was not successful, your Win7 OS froze on *Restart*, and you had to use the Power Button to shut down. If that happens, then re-boot to Win7 (you can leave the CD in the drive, just don’t *Press any key to boot from the CD or DVD*, and try to successfully *Restart* without using the Power Button.

If the system shuts down successfully and begins to re-boot, be prepared to *Press any key to boot from the CD or DVD*.

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It can, as long as you don’t *Press any key to boot from the CD or DVD*, if the restart was not successful, your Win7 OS froze on *Restart*, and you had to use the Power Button to shut down. If that happens, then re-boot to Win7 (you can leave the CD in the drive, just don’t *Press any key to boot from the CD or DVD*, and try to successfully *Restart* without using the Power Button. If the system shuts down successfully and begins to re-boot, be prepared to *Press any key to boot from the CD or DVD*.

If I understand this correctly, you want the PC to have run a complete bootup-shutdown cycle in W7 before the startup in which I’ll run the Disc. So I would start W7, allow it to boot up, then restart W7

So, make sure you have booted to your Win7 OS. Put your Win7 Repair Disc in your optical drive (if you get any *autoplay* popups, dismiss them). Shut down making sure to use the *Restart* option

1. make sure you have booted to your Win7 OS

2. Put your Win7 Repair Disc in your optical drive

3. Shut down making sure to use the *Restart* option

There is *No* “bootup-shutdown cycle in W7 before the startup in which I’ll run the Disc” mentioned. The only *shut down* is the *Restart* option in statement 3. above. Now, it will not hurt anything if you do a *bootup-shutdown cycle*, and then another *bootup* and then the *Restart*, as long as it is always the Win7 OS that’s being bootup and shutdown or restarted–just extra steps that are not necessary for what we’re trying to accomplish here.

Are you good with the instructions now?

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With W7 booted up, inserted the Repair Disc. Nothing appeared on the screen.

Start>Shut down>Restart went as expected (minute or two hung up in “shutting down” ) but then restarted,immediate black screen, “Windows is loading files” with a white bar graph across the bottom indicating progress.

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So, there’s still a chance we can work around this–we have not tried the *Win7 Installation Disc* yet.

Here’s the outline of what to do–very similar to the *Repair Disc*, but now using the *Win7 Installation Disc*.

-Make sure you are booted to Win7 OS.
-Put the *Win7 Installation Disc* in your Optical drive.
-If any autoplay popups occur, just cancel out of those.
-Re-boot your system by selecting *Restart*.
-Again, if your system freezes, and you have to use the Power Button–re-boot to Win7, and attempt a re-boot using the *Restart* option.
-Once the *Restart* option is successful, you should see the *Hit any key to boot to the CD or DVD*, or maybe it will just proceed to boot without your having to hit a key–of course, hit a key if requested.
-You should see a black screen with *Windows is loading files … *, and then *Starting Windows*, and finally a Windows 7 Splash Screen where you are asked to select your Language, Time and Currency Format, and Keyboard–probably the defaults will be correct.
-Then press the *Next* button.
-You will get *Install Now* in the middle of your screen, and off to the left side, and down, there will be two links–the top one *What to know before installing Windows*, and the bottom one *Repair your computer*–select this last option.
-Should now get the *System Recovery Options*, and automatically a screen over that that says *Searching for Windows Installations*. Once that process is completed you should get the white box with any found Windows installation listed.
–Did you get anything in the box this time?

If that white box is populated, do you want me to go further, or stop there and post back?

If you’re asking should you hit the *Startup Repair* tool link–the answer is *No*. Your *Startup* is working fine! You can boot to the OS selection screen, choose either Win7 *default* or Vista and successfully boot into whichever you select. So, there is nothing to repair as far as successful booting (startup) is concerned.

What you’re wanting to do is to *MOVE* your bootloader files from the Vista HDD to the Win7 HDD–that is not a *Startup Repair*. What a *Startup Repair* does is re-creates the HDD Identification Numbers, and saves those ID numbers to the boot files, so the bootloader can correctly find your HDD(s), and boot partition, so it can boot the Windows OSs found on your system. Creating HDD ID numbers and saving them to the boot files will not *move* your boot files. The *Startup Repair* is important if we have to restore a HDD image file, and if that restore process messes up the HDD ID numbers so the bootloader can no longer *find* the HDD ID number that it was expecting to find!

So, we are still in the process of getting you ready to make the changes you want to do, but to also have a *backup* plan if something goes very wrong. We always hope thing will not go *wrong*, but realistically, we all know that sometimes it does. I want you to be ready for what might happen, so you can attempt to recover without being *panicked*.

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It would help if Slowpoke47 was able to make his Windows 7 partition a bit smaller by 500 MB or so with disk management. There would then be room on the now full HDD to create a proper Windows 7 boot partition.

After the Windows 7 partition shrink. Add a new partition using all free space and format it in NTFS format. Do not assign a drive letter and remove the letter if Windows 7 adds one automatically. Next shutdown the PC and remove the Vista HDD. Then create the boot loader from scratch with the Windows 7 DVD.

The Automated Startup Repair option on the Windows 7 DVD only fixes one thing at a time, and you might need several things fixed (MBR, bootmgr, boot folder). So boot from the Windows 7 DVD again after each “fix” and run Startup Repair up to three times with a reboot after each attempt. With the Windows 7 DVD in the DVD Drive off course. Do not try to boot into Windows 7 itself between repair attempts!

If that does not work than he might need to use some command prompts like:

bootrec.exe /fixmbr

bootsect.exe /nt60 all /force

bootrec.exe /rebuildbcd

Not sure if Slowpoke47 is up for that.

And that is even without talking about bcdedit.exe to add the various OS like Linux to the Boot loader. Which involves GUID entry edits and displayorder edits. It is a very technical operation for the not so tech savvy.

W7 x64 Pro&Home

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Alternatively, one could do what I am doing with my own Win 7 PC (with some help from my friends). This PC, some ten days ago, suffered a sort of irreversible stroke, forgetting my accounts and for ever putting me in a temporary one where little can be done and anything created there will vanish like the night dew after sunrise, when I shut down the machine — but at least it has allowed me to back up all my data to an external hard disk. Nothing I’ve done to recover from this condition has succeeded, so now I am installing Linux Mint on it, as all the tests that I have been able to run, from CHKDSK with /F and /R, through the ones from the HP tools installed by the OEM, to other tests available in Windows itself, have returned “no problems” both for the software and the hardware. So now the machine, apparently in fine health otherwise, might still have a future… as a Linux PC. Summing up, my “solution”: going from Group B to Group L.

Oh well, for me at least, it’s time to move on, anyway. Or so I would like to think.

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The Automated Startup Repair option on the Windows 7 DVD only fixes one thing at a time, and you might need several things fixed (MBR, bootmgr, boot folder). So boot from the Windows 7 DVD again after each “fix” and run Startup Repair up to three times with a reboot after each attempt. With the Windows 7 DVD in the DVD Drive off course. Do not try to boot into Windows 7 itself between repair attempts!

Sounds like you might have some experience with the *Startup Repair*–technical expertise, or just personal? I’m curious if you would have any knowledge why the *Startup Repair* is unable to communicate with @ Slowpoke’s HDDs and load the necessary Windows OS(s) Installations into the dialogue box that is supposed to list those items. The description in the dialogue box makes it sound like the the software can not read the HDDs without adding missing drivers. (I truly do not believe this error statement. I think there’s something else going on, and the software does not have adequate diagnostics to report the *real* error condition.)

Do you think the *Startup Repair* can have any effect on any problems if the software is not communicating with the HDDs?

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I’m curious if you would have any knowledge why the *Startup Repair* is unable to communicate with @ Slowpoke’s HDDs and load the necessary Windows OS(s) Installations into the dialogue box that is supposed to list those items.

Startup repair is automated to work along certain lines and it therefor expects things to be in the right places. You can not tell it that you have a non standard setup and then command it to work on that. “You can but not in the automated way”

The Windows 7 DVD can create a Windows 7 installation on a blank HDD. So it contains everything to recreate a functional boot loader. By keeping the Vista HDD in the system you are confusing the automated setup as it tries to repair the boot loader. Normally there exists a separate partition which contains the boot loader. Slowpoke47 does not have this on his Disk 1 and there is currently no room to make one. That is why I suggested he use disk management to shrink that partition by 500 MB. The Windows 7 DVD in known for not listing/finding the Windows 7 installations on the disks. Again it is a bit of hit and miss since you can not provide any steering in this process. It does not ask you after it finds nothing to point it to the installation via a dialogue pop up.

His Windows 7 installation is fine and as such he does not need to reinstall Windows. He just needs to add the boot loader as without out it he can not startup Windows 7 or add the new Linux HDD.

BUT if this has to be done manually because even after a three times run of the automated repair option it might fail to rebuild the boot loader. Then he needs to use the command line which is complicated. Again the Windows 7 DVD contains all you need for this. You do not need additional software. Rather then choose the automated repair option you then choose Command Prompt. The fifth blue line under System Recovery Options.

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@slowpoke47, here’s a Web page showing images of the steps that @nightowl wants you to take. You might find it helpful to see what your screen is supposed to look like at each step. You want to get to Step 7 and then proceed no further, just hit the Restart button at this point and boot back into Windows 7.

Thanks for that. Except for the beginning, these are the screens I’ve been seeing using the Repair Disc. On those occasions, the Restart button just repeated all the previous steps and brought me back to that same screen, the only other choice being Shut down.

His Windows 7 installation is fine and as such he does not need to reinstall Windows. He just needs to add the boot loader as without out it he can not startup Windows 7 or add the new Linux HDD.

Is it legit to just ignore the bootup files on the Vista HDD and add them to W7 without considering that to be “moving”?

Just to recap- W7 will not boot up without the Vista HDD in place. Any repair that requires a restart may run afoul of the sporadic shutdown failure that causes me to shut down via the power button.

I have a legal W7 installation disc complete with a product code. With help on this forum, I have made a system image on an external HDD. That same help has guided me through making a Rescue Media cd and a Repair Disc cd. I have made regular weekly backups of data (and, I think, system) files, and can do another at any time.

If I were to remove the Vista HDD and reinstall W7 while that drive is the only one in the PC, I know I will have to reinstall a bunch of updates, which I could keep a list of beforehand. And I assume non-Windows programs would be lost. But, is there a point to consider this “nuclear” option?

I have made regular weekly backups of data (and, I think, system) files, and can do another at any time.

Good always make backups that way we can attempt a potentially more destructive fix. The manual one via the command prompt. You must create the missing boot loader partition first before attempting this and before removing the Vista HDD!

You do not need to reinstall Windows 7. You have a working installation but it needs an ability to startup from Disk 1.

The shutdown problem might be resolved after all these issues. They are not related.

On the other hand if you do not care about the work of a full reinstall and have backups then that might be a more simpler option. But you can always do that if all else fails. “a fresh reinstall is a lot of work with all the updates and personal settings plus other software used”

W7 x64 Pro&Home

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Sinclair- thanks for posting. I realize some of my comments are from a position of relative ignorance. I said “moving” because others here have characterized the effort as such. And, I do understand that W7 is missing the bootloader. I am absolutely willing to try to follow the guidance here, subject to my limits of understanding- if those who are patient enough to offer help don’t mind spelling out the moves needed in terms I can follow, I’m on board and most appreciative.

The reason I mention the erratic shutdown (BTW, the origin of this thread) is that, in progressing through repair work, any restarts that are needed may or may not happen without manual assistance via the power button- if that makes any difference.

For example, yesterday the shutdown sequence worked as expected a few times, needed help on several occasions, and other times worked albeit after a considerable delay. This morning so far, with just one shutdown, all went well.

Thank you your limit grasps of things is mostly preventing this from being resolved. It is all very technical and a lot of other people would be overwhelmed as well. I have tried to point it out in as small steps as possible. But if at the end of the day this does not work then do not feel bad about it. Looking at the length of this tread you can not say you did not at least try. A lot of people tried to help you NightOwl being the main contributor.

without manual assistance via the power button- if that makes any difference.

Yeah that is why I think the shutdown problem is a minor thing. A background process that takes a long time to end at shutdown. Sorting that out is not the priority right now. It does not effect repair attempts.

Start Windows 7 normally without the DVD in the drive and enter Disk Management.

Right click Disk 1 and choose the shrink volume option. Try to shrink it by 500 MB. If successful you will end up with 500 MB of unallocated space on Disk 1.

Right click that and create and format a new NTFS partition using all the space you just freed. Do not assign a drive letter or remove the letter if Windows adds one “right click on it”. Mark the partition as active “right click on it”. Ignore the it can not be used warning if you see it.

NTFS is the file system used. On a small partition of 500 MB you also have the extra choice of the FAT32 file system. We need NTFS Windows might offer to format it for you. No need to reformat it then again.

Do NOT Format WIN7 C:!!! Only create a new partition in the freed up unallocated space.

If successful you will end up with 500 MB of unallocated space on Disk 1. Right click that and create and format a new NTFS partition using all the space you just freed. Do not assign a drive letter or remove the letter if Windows adds one “right click on it”. Mark the partition as active “right click on it”. Ignore the it can not be used warning if you see it.

And I want a screenshot! I need to verify that you did it correctly. That the 500 MB is now a blue box with no drive letter assigned.

W7 x64 Pro&Home

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Not to confuse matters even more, but I would like to revisit a “new idea” I’d proposed a while ago: putting Linux on the Vista HDD to end up with a triple-booting machine. This would bypass all the difficulties we’ve seen that are associated with trying to move or create the “system” partition (the one with the bootloader) on the Windows 7 HDD.

If I recall correctly, Slowpoke47’s objection to this was that the Vista HDD is old and he would like to put a brand-new disk in there. So, he could get the biggest HDD he cares to buy, then image Vista onto it, make sure that everything works as today, and then install Linux in a new partition on that new HDD.

To my mind, this is both conceptually simpler and involving a lot less work than what we’ve been trying to do.

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If I recall correctly, Slowpoke47’s objection to this was that the Vista HDD is old and he would like to put a brand-new disk in there. So, he could get the biggest HDD he cares to buy, then image Vista onto it, make sure that everything works as today, and then install Linux in a new partition on that new HDD.

Yes that would work as well. Slowpoke47 does however allready have a new HDD with Linux installed on it. It would have been better if he just had added it to the system and then installed Linux. A three disk setup. A good Linux distro will then make sure all boot options remain.

Removed the Vista HD and installed a new blank HD, which I loaded with Mint via a download. This went well, but then could no longer open W7.

By adding a new boot partition to the existing Windows 7 HDD I can by pass the Vista HDD and the boot loader on it. In other words even if the creation of this partition fails you can then always hook up the Vista HDD and end up where you started. Since the original multiboot on there is never altered or modified in any way. You could even end up with deleting the newly partition on the Windows 7 HDD and reclaiming the 500 MB if needed. By adding the partition you create a way to mess with it without the danger of breaking the existing setup.

W7 x64 Pro&Home

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The safest, most practical solution may be to nuke the Linux Mint installation on that new HDD (Slowpoke47 says he hasn’t done anything with it, and he also has it on a flash drive) by imaging his Vista HDD (all partitions) to that new HDD, and then installing Linux Mint alongside Vista from the flash drive. This would simulate the “three disk” setup you mentioned, except it would be on two disks. (He may not have enough room or connectors inside his PC case for three physical hard drives.)

But maybe he can start out by trying to move/create the bootloader on the Windows 7 HDD, and if he gets stuck then he could fall back to my suggestion.

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Ignore the talk about their Easy Recovery Essentials for Windows Disk that they are trying to sell. Just use the Windows 7 DVD and follow the steps. Again not for the tech savvy so beware.

@ Sinclair is offering you an alternative choice as to how one could attempt to resolve your issue(s). But, read his disclaimers carefully. In his first post, he gave you a lot of steps in a brief outline that did not actually go into *particulars*, and at the end says this:

And that is even without talking about bcdedit.exe to add the various OS like Linux to the Boot loader. Which involves GUID entry edits and displayorder edits.It is a very technical operation for the not so tech savvy.

Are you ready for that list of *to do’s*, and if the process doesn’t work out, then be prepared to follow the next series of *to do’s* to try to fix whatever state your system is in now. It’s not that it can’t be done, it’s that it is not *simple* to do, and the outcome is, well, in question.

I’m curious if you would have any knowledge why the *Startup Repair* is unable to communicate with @ Slowpoke’s HDDs and load the necessary Windows OS(s) Installations into the dialogue box that is supposed to list those items. The description in the dialogue box makes it sound like the the software can not read the HDDs without adding missing drivers.

Startup repair is automated to work along certain lines and it therefor expects things to be in the right places. You can not tell it that you have a non standard setup and then command it to work on that. “You can but not in the automated way”

The Windows 7 DVD can create a Windows 7 installation on a blank HDD. So it contains everything to recreate a functional boot loader. By keeping the Vista HDD in the system you are confusing the automated setup as it tries to repair the boot loader. Normally there exists a separate partition which contains the boot loader. Slowpoke47 does not have this on his Disk 1 and there is currently no room to make one. That is why I suggested he use disk management to shrink that partition by 500 MB. The Windows 7 DVD in known for not listing/finding the Windows 7 installations on the disks. Again it is a bit of hit and miss since you can not provide any steering in this process. It does not ask you after it finds nothing to point it to the installation via a dialogue pop up.

I think the answer was that *Startup Repair* is poorly designed, and doesn’t work consistently in a manner that it purports to work as.

He basically is saying that your system and bootloader is a *non-standard* setup. *NO*, it’s not. It’s exactly the way Microsoft has set up the process of adding a new OS (Win7), to an existing Microsoft OS (Vista) on a separate HDD that was to be *multi-booted*. Now, Microsoft never intended for you to want to remove your original HDD with Vista on it, and leave your new OS (Win7) as a stand alone HDD with the Win7 OS on it. Microsoft has assumed you would just keep things as they are–forever. So, Microsoft has not created a *simple, easy* way to change things. But, that’s not to say things can not be changed–they can–and as most computer things–there are multiple paths that can be taken to reach the same final outcome–some perhaps easier than others to follow.

Now, your Vista OS was installed in an atypical way by Dell. They chose to install in such a way that a separate partition to hold the bootloader was not created. This is all by design by Microsoft–it’s not the most common setup, but that does not make it *non-standard*–it’s just *different*–putting the bootloader on the partition that has the OS files on it, instead of creating a small, separate, dedicated bootloader partition. But, it’s a setup supported by Microsoft, if you know how to set it up that way.

So, you have a choice–continue down the path that I have been taking you–yes, it’s been somewhat long and drawn out, but, that has been by intent in an attempt to keep you *safe* from procedures that are complicated, and/or unreliable.

Or, you can follow Sinclair’s path–it is probably technically correct–but, not straight forward, and I seriously doubt it is *easy* to follow–maybe for him, but not for you.

So, you have to tell us which way you would like to proceed. You can not follow both paths. If you choose Sinclair’s path, I will not be able to help further, because in all honesty, I would not know what series of new instructions to give you if the previous series of instructions do not work out as planned.

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I did not meant to butt in and if this has come across as such then I apologize for it. But if you mean generally well and I think you do then you will not mind have multiple inputs. Slowpoke47 is clearly struggling and can use all the help he can get. So what alternate way would you have of making his Windows 7 disk a stand alone installation? So far all we did was add a partition nothing dramatic has happened so far. To be fair you have not given him much choice with the double post. Is he to blame for trying to fix his problem when someone else in this case me tries to lend a helping hand?

W7 x64 Pro&Home

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So what alternate way would you have of making his Windows 7 disk a stand alone installation?

I have been *grooming* @ Slowpoke47 very carefully so he could restore his computer system from an image file should his computer system have something bad happen. He has shown great apprehension, and difficulty understanding the concepts–but, he has hung in there, and has accomplish much.

Because you have asked, here’s the solution I was going to have @ Slowpoke do to fix his problem:

I have not had to use this program, so I have no idea if it might create a problem(s). So I wanted @ Slowpoke to be ready to deal with any issues. He can probably restore a backup image, he can edit the BIOS and change the HDD Boot Priority Settings–what we have not been able to test so far, is if the restore function of Macrium will work on his system without a hitch. That’s why I was trying to make sure he could use the Win7 *Repair Disc*, should a startup problem occur after a restore operation. But, at this point I’m not sure the *Repair Disc* is functional on his system.

From the reference above:

EasyBCD will not delete or remove boot files from the current boot partition.As a result, you may revert to it without difficulty or dataloss

If the partition which is to take over control of the boot is on a different HDD from the current boot partition, you will also need to change your BIOS to put the new drive before the old one in the boot sequence, otherwise the old (untouched) boot files will continue to be in control.

One feature that our users requested quite often for a few years was the ability to easily change the boot partition with EasyBCD. EasyBCD 2.0+ offers the ability to change the Windows boot drive with a single click.

If the program works as advertised, a single click sure beats the multiple steps and edits that a *manual* move of the bootloader would require, or in your case, the *creation* of a new bootloader and boot files from the Win7 Installation DVD, and all those other steps you have listed as being needed after you *create* the new bootloader–I’m not sure I could follow all of those without making a mistake somewhere along the way.

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EasyBCD will not delete or remove boot files from the current boot partition. As a result, you may revert to it without difficulty or dataloss

That is why I wanted a new partition on the Windows 7 HDD. That way you do not alter the Vista HDD with the existing boot loader. Once this partition is made you pull the Sata cable from the Vista HDD. You can then mess with it with the Windows 7 DVD all day long without fear of damaging the existing setup. If all else fails you can delete the 500 MB partition and reconnect the Vista HDD at which point you are back where you started.

If the partition which is to take over control of the boot is on a different HDD from the current boot partition, you will also need to change your BIOS to put the new drive before the old one in the boot sequence, otherwise the old (untouched) boot files will continue to be in control.

None of the old files will be used no need to change settings in the Bios. All you do is pull the Sata cable from the Vista HDD.

One feature that our users requested quite often for a few years was the ability to easily change the boot partition with EasyBCD. EasyBCD 2.0+ offers the ability to change the Windows boot drive with a single click.

That sounds interesting but it will mess with the files on the Vista HDD right? Or could it do its magic without having that HDD attached to the system?

I don’t mind at all–I just don’t think @ Slowpoke47 has thought things through, and realizes what choice he is making. As I have said, your suggestions may be technically sound, but I really don’t think it’s goi